ERROR_INVALID_COMMAND_LINE 1639 Invalid command line argument

ERROR_INVALID_COMMAND_LINE 1639 Invalid command line argument. Consult the Windows Installer SDK for detailed command-line help.
Greetings! I have a Windows 2000 MSI version 2.00.26.1183 also given as 2.0.2600.1183. suddenly installer is fails with error 1639 — invalid command line argument.
This is on installation packages from Microsoft, whether automated, i.e. clicking on some self-extracting, self-installing archive, or by invocation on the command line. The registry entries appear to be correct, i.e. install is:
"C:WINNTsystem32msiexec.exe" /i "%1" %* and repair, uninstall and patch have the correct command line arguments /f, /x, and /p respectively. Invocation on the command line allows logging.
It does appear that there are no command line arguments passed to the log even though MSI parses the command line and complains if the arguments are incorrect or inappropriate. I found only a few posts or web sites with installer and error 1639.
Any suggestions would be much appreciated.
