Need right way to fix "Invalid drive F:" error

guys I have a system that has issues installing and uninstalling things because the MSI runs into a bunch of erroneous drive mappings in the Registry. Apparently at one time the user did a lot of work from a usb-attached drive that would map as F:. So, for instance, in trying to install now Adobe Reader, or trying to Uninstall the virulent old Palm software installation, it throws the invalid Drive Letter Error [1327 IIRC].
I can see a lot of F: drive entries in the registry, but there must be a way to do this quickly, rather than having to manually adjust all those entries.
right?

please tell me there is!! :cry

I saw on the 'tube a quickie that had to do with a shell command to "subst [baddriveletter]" to something like "C:/Windows" but I think that idea is not reco for windows XP which is what this is.

any thoughts??

 

I would plug in a USB storage drive and give it the letter F. That might help and it's a lot less risky than trying to mass rename the drive references in the registry.

 

See http://helpx.adobe.com/creative-suite/kb/install-error-1327-invalid-drive.html

Try the Microsoft Fixit solution.

 

yep, thought of that right after posting this.
worked for adobe reader.
thx