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Problem: I was trying to install Ansys 15 64-bit on my Windows 8.1 64bit. In prerequisite check, it did not detect WIC as installed. The installer worked on my other laptop (also Windows 8.1 64 bit).

Solutions Tried I knew WIC comes preinstalled and there is no installer for Windows 8.1. (A setup for XP was available...tried to install it anyway, unsuccessfully). So, I tried updating my windows, checking system using SFC /SCANNOW etc.

Questios

1.How can I detect if WIC is installed on Windows 8.1? (A similar question for XP was asked. Its solutions don't apply here)

2.How to install WIC on Windows 8.1? (I don't want to reinstall Windows)

agent420
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    The problem is probably in the installer's prerequesite check, not that the OS is actually missing WIC. WIC is included in Windows 8.1 and you'd run into system-wide issues without it. Many things (including the shell) depend on it and would break. If it were gone you'd have to revert or reinstall, but that's very unlikely. That said, you can tell if it's there by CoCreateInstancing CLSID_WICImagingFactory or CLSID_WICComponentFactory, depending on what the app actually needs. – Rob Caplan - MSFT Mar 11 '15 at 22:52
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    You should read [this blog post](http://blogs.msdn.com/b/chuckw/archive/2012/11/19/windows-imaging-component-and-windows-8.aspx). – Chuck Walbourn Mar 13 '15 at 00:16

1 Answers1

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I found the answer after going through my other laptop's registry. It seems that many programs (like Ansys etc.) determine the availability of WIC by the presence of the following registry key:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\WIC] "NoRemove"=dword:00000001

Once I added this key the Prerequisite Check program detected WIC as installed.

agent420
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    Any installer check that looks for registry entries is fragile and likely to break. To see if WIC is supported, just try to create a WIC factory. You can try to create a WIC2 factory first to see if it's the latest version. – Chuck Walbourn Mar 16 '15 at 04:51
  • I know. But the installer in question (ANSYS) uses this obsolete method. I couldn't install this bought software due to the missing key and support people were completely clueless. Thank god I found the key being checked! – agent420 Mar 16 '15 at 19:37
  • That registry check is definitely a bad one... because you can't "uninstall' WIC on any version of Windows newer than Windows XP... – Chuck Walbourn Mar 16 '15 at 19:39