I am taking as presumption that this is windows installer based installation.

 I would check the application log in eventviewer to check which component is triggering the repair.  (filter on events that have msiinstaller as source)
You wil find a component guid there.
Go to the component in question using an msieditor and check what is set as the keypath of the component.
Check whether this registry key or file is present on your computer when before you click on the shortcut.
If not,  it my trigger a repair.

Sometimes current user files that are in a component whithout having a current user registry key as keypath might cause repair problems as well

Hi Atom thanks for help. 
So basic question is where do I find the eventviewer and in what directory is th log
Thanks
Wayne

If you're using Windows XP

Go to start/settings/conftol panel/ Administrative tools/ Event Viewer.
There go to application log and filter on event source msiinstaller.

I have 2 warnings

one warning referenced the original mis-spelled install dir

was c:\program files\atte[installdir]
now c:\program files\aate[installdir]

could the old installed be somewhere else that I cannot see

Wayne

There are many places where the old version's information is stored, including the registry, and there is a cached copy of the original MSI in the c:\windows\installer hidden folder.
In an idea world you should be testing your MSI packages on a virtual machine that can be rolled back to a clean condition, or a PC that can be quickly rebuilt to a clean install of your test operating system.
Otherwise, you can google for a utility called MSIZAP which can clean up MSI installs for you, so that the spurious content that remains of your old install is correctly cleaned up.