Uh-Oh. Installer Problems in Windows 7

I'm having problems installing software on Windows 7. I'm not going to freak out and blast Microsoft for this; it's a beta system, and the same error has occurred with two different software packages: Sun's JDK 6 and Microsoft Office 2007. I have found some search results that lead me to believe that someone has succeeded in installing Office '07 on Windows 7, but I can't find out a whole lot about it.

One thought is that this is the 64-bit edition of Windows, and not much has been tested on it. XP x64 brought some pain to the compatibility area, and I don't think I've ever installed Vista x64. So I can't say that I have a lot of experience, and I don't know what to do to find the culprit. I do know that I get the same two dialog boxes when installing either the JDK or Office 2007.

Another thought is that Microsoft might have changed something in their installer (or did they even have it before Win7?), or it's a combination of the two. Whatever the case, today the computer is simply a radio.
I guess I'll have to use my laptop for the rest of the day; I need to do a White Box Test Plan for my Software Testing class, and draw several UML diagrams for my capstone. I can't install NetBeans because I can't install the JDK, and I can't install Office 2007 to do the report. I'm not mad, but I really wanted the desktop to do all this design work instead of cramming it all on the laptop.