Are you using the Unicode setup.exe? If so, can you zero in on anything suspicious, like a missing file where it looks for question marks instead of correct characters, using a tool like process monitor?
I am using the Unicode setup.exe. The offending character would appear to be an accented e in the name of one of the pre-requisites. I can make it a non-accented e for now.
Ah yes, I think we still use ANSI strings internally for streamed filenames (this includes a prerequisite's files when they're part of setup.exe). When trying to convert the accented e to ANSI on the Chinese codepage, it will be corrupted. However I would have expected this to be a problem on most non Western European language settings. Renaming the file, since you indicate it's possible, is a great workaround.
I'm having the same problem. If I don't have the option of renaming the file (which contains a "ü") or switching from a Unicode setup.exe to an ANSI setup.exe, what can I do to work around this? Also, is this going to be fixed in IS 2011?
Hi Lora. Sorry, this hasn't changed with InstallShield 2011. We're tracking this request under IOA-000057809. If you can create a self-extracting and installing archive for your prerequisite, and give that a simple name, that might be the best approach. For example, I think something like this could be done with a very simple InstallScript setup to handle this. Note that you might need to use IS2011 for its improved support for Unicode filenames in InstallScript projects. Also this limitation should only apply for files extracted from setup.exe; if you mark this prerequisite for download or copying from source media, it should be okay.
Thank you for your response, Michael. My prerequisites actually have the Build Location set to Copy from Source Media, but are you saying that this shouldn't be a problem? Or do I have to upgrade to IS2011, and then it won't be a problem there?
Just to clarify, it's the name of my .prq file that has the ü in it, not the installer for the prerequisite.
Oh, it's in the name of the prerequisite. We really need to fix things so you don't have to put funky characters in the file name in order to support reasonable display names. That's not fixed in IS2011 either, and can't be worked around the way I describe. I've updated IOA-000057809 with a note about this to make sure we don't forget to handle that part.
Not sure if you're aware...having extended ASCII characters in the prerequisite name wasn't a problem in IS2009 or IS2008. It's unfortunate that I'll have to change it to not have high ASCII characters now considering that the previous versions of our product had the technically correct prerequisite name.
I think this newer behavior (perversely) helps you catch this case up front by raising the problem more frequently. When setup.exe was ANSI, it could put in any name, treating it as a bytestring. However for a file that's now giving problems, if you tried to extract it on a different code page than the one used to create it, it may have failed in interesting ways. All that said, I think there are two things that need to be fixed. One being support for such filenames, and one being a better way to define and localize a prerequisite's display name.
Right, it be would be great if those two issues could be fixed.
Here are more details of the issue I'm having, just fyi. For my IS2009 project, my setup was compiled as Unicode. When I run it on a Japanese (or probably any other double-byte language) machine and the prerequisite files are extracted, the strings "för" and "für" in the prerequisite filename would show up as "f・ ", but the installation continues with no error. (This is the same result as my ANSI setup created with IS2008.) But after converting to IS 2010 with the setup launcher still set to Unicode, I get the 1152 error when running setup.
