I am getting a sporadic error of 1904 (dll failed to register) HResult 2147220473 when I install one of our programs. This program installs without a problem on Windows 8 64 bit. However it sometimes installs correctly on Windows 8 32 bit and then sometimes not, usually 1 of out 2 tries. This program installs correctly on all other OS. I have also installed other programs on Windows 8 without a problem. Any ideas?
My suggestion would be to not use self registration. It's not a Windows Installer best practice.
This isn't really an InstallShield or Windows Installer problem. It's copying your DLL and calling the DllRegisterServer() function. The DLL then fails to register for whatever reason (most likely a missing dependency but could be a code problem or Data Execution Protection (DEP) or any number of reasons). At that point MSI / IS can merely report that it failed and attempt to do a rollback. It can't actually rollback whatever changes the DLL may or may not have made because MSI isn't aware of what those changes are.
