Error 1720 on reinstall of Palm Desktop

Archived from groups: comp.sys.palmtops.pilot (More info?)

After doing a scandisk and defrag on my Win2K laptop, the Palm Desktop
program freezes on the initial logo and won't come up.

I decided to pop in the CD that came with my Tungsten E and try to
take the option to repair the desktop program. The installer appears
to fire up OK initially, but then issues the error:

"Error 1720. There is a problem with the Windows Installer package. A
script required for this install to complete could not be run. Contact
your support personnel or package vendor."

Incidentally, I get the same error when I try to uninstall the Palm
Desktop from "add/remove programs" in Control Panel.

I tried to download Windows Installer from the Microsoft website, but
when I try to install it I get the msg "This service already exists".

So now I'm stuck. Any ideas?