“Setup cannot continue because a more recent version of Internet Explorer has been detected on this computer.”

Recently while performing a Windows Update my Vista box locked up.  The update ( for Internet Explorer 8 ) hadn’t quite completed and when I restarted, IE 8 was installed and running fine but my Windows Update didn’t think so.

My first thought was to remove IE 8, surely a re-install would solve the problem.  I followed the advice on Microsoft’s support site ( http://support.microsoft.com/kb/957700 ) for removing IE and neither the standard or alternative instructions worked for me.

After days without a resolution I finally figured out how to re-install IE 8 ( of course, you will only need to perform this hack if the Microsoft’s recommendations don’t work for you ).  Here is how to do it:

1. Download IE 8.
2. Run the installer and wait for the “Setup cannot continue because a more recent version of Internet Explorer has been detected on this computer.” prompt to appear.  DO NOT CLOSE THE PROMPT – if you close the prompt this will not work as the temporary directory mentioned in the next step will be removed.
3. The installer is extracted to one of your drives ( in my case it was not my C drive, so make sure you look at all of your available drives ) in a directory named with a random key ( in my case the key was 5c5c0d193eca399daddb3768b3 ).  Find the directory, open it, and run ie8.msu.  This will allow the installer to run and you will be up and running.