I had this problem with Battlefield 3 installation under Windows 10. Most of what is on the web applies to Windows 7 and the offending Micro$oft update cannot be removed because it is not present. Likewise, the Hotfix to correct the problem only applies to Windows 7. The Visual C++ 2008 SP1 installation was failing with the error "Error 997. Overlapped i/o operation is it progress." no matter what I tried.
After searching the web and finding suggestions for other programs producing similar errors and adding whitelists and other lengthy and unnecessarily complex rigmarole, the thought occurred to me that we can change the DWORD value from 0 to a 1 so it applies to everything (rather than 2 and creating a whitelist). I tried it and it worked flawlessly.
So, long story short, to fix this with Windows 7, 8.X or 10, add this registry key and DWORD, reboot and it should be cured.
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Installer] "SecureRepairPolicy"=dword:00000001
Thank you! Thank you so much! I was about to go into a rage figuring this out but that worked! THANK YOU!
