Thoughts about setup and deployment issues, WiX, XNA, the .NET Framework and Visual Studio
All postings are provided AS IS with no warranties, and confer no rights. Additionally, views expressed herein are my own and not those of my employer, Microsoft.
In the past, we've heard from a few people via the Creators Club forums who have had trouble getting XNA Game Studio setup to run correctly. In a few cases, such as in this forum post, the setup program (named bootstrapper.exe) crashes shortly after double-clicking on the setup package to launch it.
If you run into this type of issue with XNA Game Studio 2.0, 3.0, 3.1, 4.0 or 4.0 Refresh setup, you can use the following set of steps to bypass bootstrapper.exe and install the pieces of XNA Game Studio manually.
To manually install the XNA Game Studio 4.0 Refresh
Note - if you are running a 64-bit version of Windows, you will need to use %programfiles(x86)% instead of %programfiles% for the installation paths.
Note: This MSI will only display a small progress bar while it is installing and will not tell you when it is done. When the progress bar disappears, continue to the next step.
To manually install XNA Game Studio 4.0
To manually install XNA Game Studio 3.1
To manually install XNA Game Studio 3.0
To manually install XNA Game Studio 2.0
If you end up running into this type of crash, before you proceed with one of the above workarounds, please collect a call stack with Visual Studio or Visual C# Express Edition and report a bug on the Connect site so that we can investigate it further.
<update date="8/7/2009"> Added clarification about the install step for redists.msi. </update>
<update date="11/5/2010"> Added information about installing XNA Game Studio 4.0. </update>
<update date="11/8/2010"> Added a note about the %programfiles(x86)% path on 64-bit versions of Windows. </update>
<update date="2/22/2012"> Added information about installing the XNA Game Studio 4.0 Refresh. </update>
Recently, we've heard from a few people via the Creators Club forums who have had trouble getting XNA
for some reason it keeps saying "The vabinet file 'product.cab' required for this installation is corrupt and cannot be used. This could indicate a network error, a error reading from the CD-ROM, or a problem with this package." What do i do?!?!?!?!?!
Hi W8sted8 - This error usually means that the setup package is corrupt. I'd suggest trying to re-download it and re-run the steps on this blog post to see if that will help solve this error.
hey astebner, thanks for the advice but ive uninstalled, also using the xna game studio cleanup program, and reinstalled it. yet, nothings been working. i even followed the steps on his blog but nothing :( help?
Hi W8sted8 - I'm not sure what else to suggest. That error typically means that the setup source files are corrupt. Just to confirm, did you try to download a new copy of the setup program? It is possible that an overly aggressive anti-virus or anti-spyware program could cause this type of problem too, so it might help to temporarily disable this software on your system, try running setup again, then re-enable it afterwards.
Excellent post! I had been running into an error when executing XNAGS31_setup ("Error 1316. A network error occurred while attempting to read from the file: C:\Program Files\Microsoft XNA\XNA Game Studio\v3.1\Redist\XNA FX Redist\xnafx31_redist[1].msi") but your steps for manually installing XNAGS3.1 worked like a charm. Many thanks.
Hi Tscheffel - The error you're encountering is the same as the one in the Connect bug at connect.microsoft.com/.../ViewFeedback.aspx. You can work around it by using the steps in this blog post or by simply uninstalling the XNA Framework Redistributable from the Programs and Features control panel and re-running XNA Game Studio setup.
Also, this bug is going to be fixed in the final release of XNA Game Studio 4.0.
Hi.I can't install xnaliveproxy.msi ...Can someone help me?
Hi Zamma - I'd suggest trying the workarounds listed at blogs.msdn.com/.../10045725.aspx and see if they help solve this problem.
I've installed Visual Studio 2008 Ultimate. Which includes many compilers. Including Visual Basic C# and C++(which is irrelevant I guess). However, when I tried to install XNA 3.1 it stated I needed Visual Basic C# express. Figuring I couldn't hurt anything I downloaded it from the link presented by the error page and installed it. After restarting my computer I STILL cannot install XNA 3.1. Any suggestions Aaron?
Thanks in advance,
Jonathan V.
Hi Jon - XNA Game Studio 3.1 requires that you have either Visual C# 2008 Express Edition or Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition or better installed. There is no such thing as "Visual Basic C# Express." Are you sure that you read the error message correctly and that you installed one of these exact Visual Studio 2008 editions on your computer?
what in the hell is "xnags31_setup.exe /x"?
Hi Steve - The XNA Game Studio setup package is a self-extracting .exe file. The /x command line switch will allow you to unpack the contents of the self-extracting .exe file to a folder of your choosing so you can run each of the sub-components individually instead of letting the main setup program try to run them for you.
I also face this error during un-installation.
Below are few tips to fix this error:
Follow the following guidelines to fix this error:
1. Use Windows Installer Clean Up
2. Use a Registry Fixing Utility
3. Change Windows Installer Registry Information
4. Check the Security Details of the Concerning File