Win95: "Corrupt intallation detected." - cause known, solution needed

[Bengt Richter]

On Fri, 24 Aug 2001 15:22:39 -0400, "Tim Peters" <tim.one at home.com> wrote:

>[Szczepan Ho³yszewski]
>> I just downloaded Python-2.1.1.exe installer and, guess, I'm getting
>> that "Corrupt installation detected." box. I've already found out
>> that it has something to do with administrator privileges on WinNT/2000.
>
>In the sense that *if* you're running NT/2K, it's possible to get a *bogus*
>"Corrupt installation detected" msg from the 2.1.1 installer simply because
>you don't have sufficient privilege.  The new 2.2a2 installer should not
>have that problem (if you want to be a daring alpha tester, try that
>instead!).
>
>That's not a possible cause on 95/98/ME, though.  It's far more likely on
>the latter that the download is in fact corrupt.  If you tried downloading
>using Netscape, try IE instead, or vice versa, or if you use ftp make sure
>you use binary mode.
>
>A size check sometimes settles this issue:
>
>C:\Code>dir Python-2.1.1.exe
>
> Volume in drive C is HOMEDRIVE
> Volume Serial Number is 2637-18E7
> Directory of C:\Code
>
>PYTHON~1 EXE     6,310,277  07-20-01 12:00p Python-2.1.1.exe
>
>If your Python-2.1.1.exe isn't exactly 6,310,277 bytes, it's definitely
>corrupt.
>
But an md5 check settles it even more definitely ;-). IMHO any file published
for downloading should have the md5 digest and size on the download page (size
more for estimating download time than integrity checking).

As you I'm sure you know, the md5 for Python-2.1.1.exe can be found at
    http://www.python.org/2.1.1/ page:

39ef54d3e29ea402c8b693b4f3fedd4a Python-2.1.1.exe

(Of course that doesn't prove that a corrupted file wasn't put into the archive.
For belt and suspenders, I guess you could do md5's for individual
critical files within an archive as well, if you don't trust the
archiving/dearchiving process. Even that will just help identify the point
of corruption, but at least we'll know where the culprit must be ;-)