Mailbag: How to set the NoImpersonate flag for a custom action in Visual Studio 2005

re: Mailbag: How to set the NoImpersonate flag for a custom action in Visual Studio 2005

Aaron Stebner — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 02:12:11 GMT

Hi Naga - If you've updated your MSI and it is still failing, it is possible that the issue described in this blog post is not the root cause of the failure. Also, the issue related to teh NoImpersonate flag only affects Windows Vista and higher, and should not be an issue on Windows XP.

I'd suggest looking in the verbose MSI log to see if there is any useful error information to help narrow down the root cause further. You can use steps like the ones listed at blogs.msdn.com/.../help-me-help-you-if-you-have-setup-bugs.aspx to gather a verbose MSI log file from your installer.

re: Mailbag: How to set the NoImpersonate flag for a custom action in Visual Studio 2005

Naga — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 03:11:20 GMT

Thanks for your quick reply Aaron. Unfortunatly, this solution is not resolving the issue I have. My msi still errors out with 2869. This error very recentand all was well until occur some Microsoft security patches for XP SP3 was installed( We are yet to determine which security patch as a number of them have been installed.)

re: Mailbag: How to set the NoImpersonate flag for a custom action in Visual Studio 2005

Aaron Stebner — Tue, 22 Mar 2011 00:44:15 GMT

Hi Naga - No, the .js file will not be copied to the user's system. It is only used at build time to make some modifications to the .msi file. To verify the changes in the .msi, you would need to look in the .msi file after running the .js file on it. Specifically, the settings for the Type column of the CustomAction table will be changed. You can use the Orca tool in the Windows SDK (msdn.microsoft.com/.../aa370557.aspx) to view the tables in a .msi file.

re: Mailbag: How to set the NoImpersonate flag for a custom action in Visual Studio 2005

Naga — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 15:47:39 GMT

Hello Aaron,

How do I check if the noimpersonate is set correctly in the MSI. I followed your steps and rebuilt the solution and the build succeeded. Now when the client installs the msi, will they see this .js file copied down anywhere in their system?

re: Mailbag: How to set the NoImpersonate flag for a custom action in Visual Studio 2005

Andy P — Mon, 22 Nov 2010 10:31:12 GMT

Just to confirm that having read the thread all the way through I included the js file into my deployment folder and it all worked first time. Many thanks all for this thread. Its a serious time-saver! A

re: Mailbag: How to set the NoImpersonate flag for a custom action in Visual Studio 2005

Aaron Stebner — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 23:18:27 GMT

Hi Santosh - You're going to want to run this script as a post-build step, not a pre-build step. The script updates the MSI that is produced by the build process, so running it as a pre-build step will not work because the MSI won't be built yet. I'd suggest making sure that you're following the exact steps listed in this blog post so that it will run the script as a post-build step. Also, the error message lists the full path where it expects to find the script, so I'd suggest double-checking that the script is saved at that exact path on your computer.

re: Mailbag: How to set the NoImpersonate flag for a custom action in Visual Studio 2005

Santosh — Mon, 06 Sep 2010 11:12:50 GMT

Hi Aaron

When I build the MSI installer project it shows following error.

Error 1 'PreBuildEvent' failed with error code '1' 'Unspecified error'.

Cause of error : Can not find script file "E:\del\AdobeVS2005\AdobeSerivce\DeletePDF\CustomAction_NoImpersonate.js".

I am running 2 projects at the time of installation.

Thanks in advance

Santosh Patil.

re: Mailbag: How to set the NoImpersonate flag for a custom action in Visual Studio 2005

Aaron Stebner — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 00:20:27 GMT

Hi Duncan Hornby - Changing the NoImpersonate flag will not cause any problems on Windows XP. If that setting is what is causing the problem on Windows 7, then making the change listed in this blog post should allow the MSI to install on any OS. Please note that you should try to confirm that this really is the root cause of the install failure before trying to make this type of change though. You can do that by looking at the verbose MSI log file from a failing installation and searching for the string "return value 3".

re: Mailbag: How to set the NoImpersonate flag for a custom action in Visual Studio 2005

Duncan Hornby — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 19:21:45 GMT

Hi Aaron,

Can I confirm something? I have built a .Net extension for some software called ArcGIS. I built an installer and everything worked fine on XP systems. Someone tried to install it on a Windows 7 system and got the error message. So I am looking at your blog as a solution. What I want to know is if I implement the above does that mean the installer will only work on Vista/Window 7 OS or will it still work on XP systems too?

Duncan

re: Mailbag: How to set the NoImpersonate flag for a custom action in Visual Studio 2005

Aaron Stebner — Wed, 13 May 2009 03:07:19 GMT

Hi Lovecreatesbeauty@hotmail.com - This error essentially means that the custom action is failing, but doesn't provide any details about the root cause. There could be a lot of possible causes for this type of error, depending on what your custom action is designed to do. You will probably need to try to debug your custom action in more detail to narrow this down further. You can do this by adding logging to your custom action or adding a dialog box at the beginning of your custom action so you can attach a debugger. You could also try using the MsiBreak environment variable (described at http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/aa368264.aspx).