Microsoft SQL Server 2012 fails as part of Visual Studio 2012 and as separate installtion

In some constellations, the installation of SQL Server 2012 fails.

This was described earlier in at least two threads:

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/visualstudiogeneral/thread/53c0d5ae-3f2d-4f59-b79f-dad8ebe44530/#6620d7b0-1b7b-4659-976a-ab68e6b54949

and

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/vssetup/thread/0608c765-c077-4f6d-858c-57192f2ca978/

I could not see any solution described in those two threads, unfortunately.

I noticed this the first time when installing Visual Studio Express 2012, and then again when installing SQL Server 2012 later.

My operating system is Windows 7 (64 bit) Ultimate SP1 German, with all current updates

I tried this to fix the error in the Visual Studio Express 2012 installation:

- Re-install from http://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/deu#products/visual-studio-express-products (using the online installer) while the old installation was still installed.

- Uninstall Visual Studio Express 2012, then re-install it.

- Use the "repair" option from the uninstaller of Visual Studio Express 2012.

- Uninstall Visual Studio Express 2012, then uninstall everything that had "SQL" and "2012" in its name, then re-install Visual Studio.

The problem persisted, always these packages were shown with error signs (see screenshot below):

Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Native Client Package failed.
Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Command Line Utilities Package failed. 
Microsoft SQL Server 2012 Express LocalDB Package failed.

The online installer re-downloaded all of the installation files when I re-installed, so it is unlikely that the same file(s) were corrupted each time, due to a download error. This is why I do not consider it likely that the cause of the problem is a corrupted file in the download.

When researching the error, I found this help request of November 2012, which still seems to be open for several people trying to install SQL Server 2012 and Visual Studio Express 2012:

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/vssetup/thread/0608c765-c077-4f6d-858c-57192f2ca978/

These users report the same packages failing, when installing SQL Server or Visual Studio.

I uploaded my files to this Sky Drive location: http://sdrv.ms/14sXBmv

This directory contains:

- The installation log containing the error messages (the first one I can see is: "MUX:  ExecuteError: Package (sqlncli_amd64) failed: Error Message Id: 1723 ErrorMessage: There is a problem with this Windows Installer package. A DLL required for this installation to complete could not be run.")

- A screenshot of the online installer when it displays the error.

- The *.cab output of vscollect.

About a week after the failed Visual Studio 2012 installation I installed SQL Server 2012. Again parts of the installation failed with similar error messages. The file upload now also contains an rtf file with all three error messages that appeared during the installation.

Any advice how to solve the error would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks a lot!