Summary

Discussion on common resolutions for run time error 2762

Symptoms

When running an installation created with Express, the following error occurs:

"Error 2762: Internal Error"

Cause

Listed below are the known causes to this error message. The causes are divided into two categories: A and B. Cause A further divides itself to several sub-causes; the resolutions to which are provided in the Resolution section in similar fashion.

Cause A

The main cause of Error 2762 is a certain custom action in the project that is either corrupt or not properly authored. Listed below are all the possible custom action causes leading up to Error 2672. Most of these causes pertain to a certain custom action attribute.

Resolution

This error message is mainly caused by custom actions or other actions sequenced within the setup package. Most of the resolutions require changing the custom action's attributes to fix the issue.

To change custom action's attributes in the Express IDE, follow these steps:

1. Open Custom Actions under the Define Setup Requirements or Define Setup Requirements and Actions view.
2. Select on the Custom Action to be modified in the center window inside Express IDE. The attributes are displayed on the right.

Error 2762 occurs

Cause

If you have a custom action in your setup and the custom action's Invoke attribute is set to After Setup Complete Success Dialog and Wait for Action attribute is set to Yes, this error message occurs.

Resolution

To resolve the issue, Set the Wait for Action attribute of the custom action to No if the custom action is being invoked after the Setup Complete Success dialog. If this does not work, try the next suggestion.

Cause

If you have a custom action in your setup and the Run Once attribute of the custom action is set to Yes.

Resolution

It is recommended that you set the custom action's Run Once attribute to No to fix the issue.

Cause

If you have a custom action in your setup and the custom action is named after a Windows Installer reserve name, e.g., InstallFiles, error 2762 may occur.

Resolution

It is recommended that you do not use reserve names or trivial names for the custom action. InstallFiles is one such example of a name that can cause this error message. A proper custom action name could be CustomA_InstFiles.

Cause

If you have a custom action in your setup and the command-line argument being passed to this custom action is incorrect, you can encounter error 2762.

Resolution

Check the "Command line" attribute of the custom action to make sure that it is correct with respect to the file being invoked by the custom action. A good test would be to launch the file manually with the command-line arguments, via the Run command of the Windows operating system. The Run command can be accessed by selecting Start > Run.

Cause

If a file being launched via a custom action has its related files stored in the Support Files section, this error may occur if the custom action is unable to find the files in the Temp directory on the target machine.

Resolution

If you are launching a child setup that has its uncompressed files in the Support File section via custom actions, you may experience this error message. The recommended approach is to compress all your setup files into a single setup.exe. Then launch this setup.exe via a custom action.

Cause

The custom action being launched may be missing proper dependencies on the machine to launch successfully.

Resolution

Sometimes files being launched via custom actions require their dependent files to be installed and registered on the machine. If this does not happen, the custom actions can fail with error 2762. To avoid this, create your custom action with the following options:

1. Add the custom action file and its dependent files in the File's view to be installed and registered by the setup.
2. Create a new custom action and set its Source Location attribute to Installed With the Product.
3. In the File Name attribute of the custom action, select your custom action file.
4. Set the Invoke attribute of the custom action to After Setup Complete Success Dialog.

Cause

The return code returned by the custom action may result in this error message.

Resolution

According to the Windows Installer Service, custom actions of type executable must return a value of 0 for success. If executables return any other value, then the Windows Installer Service interprets it as a failure and exits with error 2762. If you can not change the return value returned by the file, set the custom action's Ignore Exit Code attribute to Yes. This can serve as a workaround to avoid this error message.