Setup cannot copy the file CMNICFG.XML

I just overcame this issue that had me sweating it all night long.
Couldnt find a lick of info on this so Here is my solution.

I was doing an inplace upgrade of windows 2000 server to windows 2003.
During the blue screen setup phase I was getting errors : Setup cannot
copy the file CMNICFG.XML

After skipping that file I got the same error for the following files

ipcfg.xml, osinfo.xml, potscfg.xml, pppcfg.xml, trustmon.dll,
trustmon.mof, twcli32.msi, and dwil1033.dll

Skipping the files still allowed me to continue to the gui setup
phase, but immedatly upon starting I woud get the errors:

Fatal Error: internal setup data structures are corruptedhe
and another error : SAM initilization fialed because of the following
error. Directory service cannot start 0xC00002e1
--------------------------------------

The problem was that my System32 directory somehow lost its
permissions. I had to do an seperate install of windows to get to the
file system, and once I did I could see that my system32 directory had
entries for Administrator, and SYSTEM .. but there were no permissions
assigned at all!

I gave full control to administrator and SYSTEM and restarted the
setup and all the files copied correctly, and I was able to resume my
2k3 setup . Its almost done now , and I feel like smoking an F'ing
cigar!

Hope that helps somone out there.

Cheers
-Jay

Hello jdisco@gmail.com,

This could happen with a bad CD DVD. Try to copy it to a new disc or copy
it to a network folder and install from their. Maybe organiye a new disc
from your vendor.

[JackC]

Many many thanks!

[FlipsydeBK]

this post helped me help someone else.. thanks a bunch for posting.. my customer tried to install vista on his system but there weren't any drivers for the components in his system so he decided to switch back to xp.. when the xp cd tried to copy the files, the files listed above were not able to copy successfuly.. apparently the customer did not get prompted to format the HDD before installing xp.. so i just deleted the old windows partition and recreated it, reformatted it, and the installation went along smoothly..

[zyphyr]

Thank you so much. It helped me alot.
Also works if you install XP under a different directory, like "windowz". No need to format HDD.

[dannydawg5]

You can also go in to repair mode and then rename the c:\windows\ directory to something else. After I did that, XP installed no prob.

Always do backups, but being able to keep your data when installing is a nice plus.