Vista - Need help - Windows installer issue - Cannot install updates

I am running Windows Vista Home Premium on my laptop. For last few days I have not been able to install windows updates. I get the error with code 80070641.

After wandering through different forums and suggested solutions, I followed this path - control panel > system and maintenance > administrative tools > services > windows installer (double clicked and saw that the start-up type is 'Automatic'). When I clicked on the 'Start the service' button in the left panel here, I got the following message:

Windows could not start the windows installer service on local computer.
Error 3: The system cannot find the path specified.

Can anybody help me resolve this problem and bring the Windows Installer back on track?


By the way, later, I did this -

Click Start, Run and type: cmd /k sc qc msiserver
Press ENTER.

Following is the ouyput I received -

[SC] QueryServiceConfig SUCCESS
SERVICE_NAME: msiserver
TYPE : 10 WIN32_OWN_PROCESS
START_TYPE : 2 AUTO_START
ERROR_CONTROL : 1 NORMAL
BINARY_PATH_NAME : C:\Windows\system32\Msiexec.exe/V
LOAD_ORDER_GROUP :
TAG : 0
DISPLAY_NAME : Windows Installer
DEPENDENCIES : rpcss
SERVICE_START_NAME : LocalSystem
C:\Users\Shirish>


Does anyone have any idea of what's going wrong here?
Please help me resolve this issue.

Thanks,
Shirish