I keep getting "F:\vs_setup.msi could not be opened" when I try to install
Visual Studio .Net Academic 2003. I have tried all manner of working with
this - including installing a new installer, but no luck.

It all came about because I manually deleted VC 2003 because it would no
longer find VC++ source code while debugging. Then I couldn't uninstall the
damn thing because I kept getting same error as outlined above - so I
couldn't even uninstall it. So I just wiped the damn thing out manually from
the harddrive and the registry.

What a crock of crap - I keep running into this problem. My last freaking
resort is to reinstall Windows XP YET AGAIN which I have done countless
times because problems similar to this one ... Microsoft has great products
WHEN THEY WORK !!!!

Does anyone have any good solid solutions to helping with this problem ?

I am running WinXP Home on a Sony Vaio GRX-550 SP1.

Thanks in advance.