InstallShield issue on Windows 8?

[giorgiou]

I'm a licensed user of InstallShield 2010 Premier and we use InstallShield to develop our install project for some time.

But now, we've met a strange install issue on Windows 8.

The product installer can be installed on Windows 8 conuser preview build, that is build 8250, but finally failed at latter build 8301, 8308 and recent 8319.

We doubt there's a regression in Windows 8, but from MS view, they said they have fixed the issue.

We use type 51 CAs to get some environment variables, and the sequence is as attached image.

But finally we got the error log when it attempts to get the non-existing environment variable, as following:

Action start 16:07:50: InstallInitialize.
MSI (s) (64:B0) [16:07:50:248]: Doing action: SetTextureDir_ILB
Action ended 16:07:50: InstallInitialize. Return value 1.
MSI (s) (64:B0) [16:07:50:248]: PROPERTY CHANGE: Modifying TEXTUREDIR property. Its current value is '[INSTALLDIR]'. Its new value: '할摍Ò'.
Action start 16:07:50: SetTextureDir_ILB.
MSI (s) (64:B0) [16:07:50:248]: Doing action: SetTextureDir_ILL
Action ended 16:07:50: SetTextureDir_ILB. Return value 1.
Action start 16:07:50: SetTextureDir_ILL.
MSI (s) (64:B0) [16:07:50:248]: Doing action: SetTextureDir_ILM
Action ended 16:07:50: SetTextureDir_ILL. Return value 1.
Action start 16:07:50: SetTextureDir_ILM.
MSI (s) (64:B0) [16:07:50:248]: Doing action: UpdateINSTALLDIR
Action ended 16:07:50: SetTextureDir_ILM. Return value 1.
MSI (s) (64:B0) [16:07:52:638]: Note: 1: 1314 2: 할摍Ò
MSI (s) (64:B0) [16:07:52:638]: Note: 1: 1606 2: 할摍Ò
Action start 16:07:50: UpdateINSTALLDIR.
Error 1606.Could not access network location 할摍Ò.
MSI (s) (64:B0) [16:07:52:638]: Product: Autodesk Material Library 2013 -- Error 1606.Could not access network location 할摍Ò.

MSI (s) (64:B0) [16:07:52:638]: Note: 1: 1606 2: 할摍Ò
Error 1606.Could not access network location 할摍Ò.
MSI (s) (64:B0) [16:07:52:638]: Product: Autodesk Material Library 2013 -- Error 1606.Could not access network location 할摍Ò.

MSI (s) (64:B0) [16:07:52:654]: Note: 1: 2265 2: 3: -2147287035
MSI (s) (64:B0) [16:07:52:654]: Machine policy value 'DisableRollback' is 0
MSI (s) (64:B0) [16:07:52:654]: Note: 1: 1402 2: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\Rollback\Scripts 3: 2
Action ended 16:07:52: UpdateINSTALLDIR. Return value 3.
MSI (s) (64:B0) [16:07:52:685]: Note: 1: 1402 2: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\Rollback\Scripts 3: 2
MSI (s) (64:B0) [16:07:52:685]: No System Restore sequence number for this installation.
MSI (s) (64:B0) [16:07:52:685]: Unlocking Server
Action ended 16:07:52: INSTALL. Return value 3.

Does anyone know whether this is an InstallShield issue on Windows 8?

Many thanks

[MichaelU]

Type 51 custom actions are processed internally to Windows Installer, so as long as the resulting table entries are correct, this should not be a problem caused by InstallShield. I would recommend verifying the values of the environment variables in question, and the values in the built .msi file. If they both look correct, I would suspect a problem in Windows. If one is incorrect, that should help you find the culprit.

[giorgiou]

Michael,

Thanks for your suggestions.

Actually, the internal logics here for such custom actions are to check and get the environment variables.

To my mind, if the environment variable doesn't exist, the value should be NULL or empty and then the property updating process should be skipped.

[MichaelU]

Getting an empty string as your result if the environment variable is undefined sounds like a reasonable expectation to me. However this is behavior of Microsoft's Windows Installer, so, as long as the resulting .msi file has the correct entries, there's nothing InstallShield can do to change this behavior.