Windows Me step by step installer stops Norton Antivirus from installing

I'm helping my friend on a computer problem.
The computer is a PIII 800mhz running XP Home edition
linked to the internet on a high speed cable modem.

The computer was loaded with
pests. Pestpatrol, Spybot S&D, Adaware SE all were ran several times - finally in safe mode until everything came up clean. (@ 5 hours later)

Then we tried to install Norton Antivirus, but
"Microsoft Windows Me Step By Step Installer" suddenly took over
the install process. I cancelled out of the install and went to add remove
programs and deleted Windows Me step by step installer.
I rebooted the computer and tried the Norton install again.
Once again the Windows Me step by step installer took over the install
process so this time I allowed it to complete the install. I then rebooted and
tried to install Norton again and the Windows Me step by step installer
took over the install process.
I deleted the step by step installer again and repeated the process twice
more with the same results.

I don't know what to do here.
Any ideas?

 

One other thing. Does anybody even know what Windows Me
Step by Step Installer is? I did a google lookup on it and couldn't
find any information on it.

 

I don't know if this helps, but the full program name is
Windows ME Step by Step Interactive.

 

Is this "windows ME step by step installer" located in addremove?

If so, click start, then RUN, then type in: regedit (press enter)

Next navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\windows\currentversion\uninstall

See if you can find this "step by step installer" thing in here.

If you can, then click the entry. On the left side of registry editor, you should have a list of entries/keys:

I would like to know what the uninstall key/entry has. Double click on this entry and copy/paste the value data here.

 

Yes it does show up in ad remove programs. It doesn't show a size though.
I deleted it from there a few times as I tried working around the problem because I allowed it to install a few times to troubleshoot. It still jumps
to the interactive install during the Norton install, even after it (interactive)
has already been installed.

My friend won't be able to follow the instructions over the phone, so I will
have to wait until I go over there again, probably tomorrow. Then I'll pull
up your post again and get the answers to your post.
I'll bump this thread again once I have done that.
Thanks!!

For what it's worth, I did all the usual steps, turn off system restore,
files are set to show hidden folder and full title paths.
One thing I want to find out from my friend is whether the XP home
was an upgrade from Windows ME, because I don't understand why
an ME interactive anything would be on his XP machine.

 

No...Windows XP and Window ME work on entirely different kernels. ME uses a DOS kernel, and XP uses the NTFS kernel. It is possible for MEs installation program to run on XP, however. Why is another question altogether....

 

Actually, ME is a fat32 based file system, that is based off 9x code. While xp has the capabilities to run either FAT32 or NTFS Also is based on the NT kernel version 5.1.

But for simplicity sake, yes, xp and ME are totally different on the inside, while on the visual side, they can appear to be the same.

Though, in this case, this program that refuses to uninstall is probably some residue program that xp left alone.

 

Oops...you're right. I flubbed. What he said!