Yeah, very strange that only some MSIs are being affected by this error. They no doubt have something in common.

If by clean boot you mean reinstalling Windows, then yes, that fixes most issues, but it is pretty drastic :)

I don't actually have any good recommendations for fixing Windows Installer problems... there used to be a troubleshooting tool available, but I'm not sure where it's gone. All the best advice I can find online these days basically just says to reinstall, but you could try System Restore first (and it may even help to create a new restore point and then restore to it - I suspect that will reset some state without losing anything you installed recently).

Without full access to your machine and much better installer diagnostic skills than I have there's nothing else I can offer, sorry.