Mike,
I finally figured out what was wrong and thought that I'd post the fix as I have found that many people have had this problem.
It appears that many (perhaps most) programs create a directory at C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Application. Somehow the security settings for the Start Menu and Programs directories attributes were set to "Read Only" and the security settings did not give full control to "Everyone".
When I reset these to remove the "Read Only" attribute and to give full control to "Everyone" I was able to complete several installations.
Ed