Hi Uwe, I figured out how to install Palm Desktop, perhaps this might prove useful to someone:
1. Install native Windows Installer manually. To do this, install dcom98 first. Then run instmsia.exe. The install will complain, but it will leave behind all the files you need in Windows\Installer\InstMsi0. Copy all the files in there to Windows\system, and set msi.dll and msiexec.exe to native.
2. Install Windows Script 5.6. You can download it from here: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=0a8a18f6-249c-4a72-... Keep in mind that it's the English version though. To install it, set setupapi to builtin and run the file.
3. Run Palm Desktop setup like normal, and it will install everything you need.
Of course, running palm desktop is a different story (there is a crash in WinMM that stops it from running.) I'm currently working on getting Hotsync to work with my USB cradle using the visor driver, but there's some problems with that. I'll post a dump of the messages I get and see if I can make something happen. Thanks for the help :).
James