I'm having trouble installing our software on certain machines when installing our .msi built in VS2015.
Without VS2015, I get this in the log file:
MSI (s) (24:64) [11:21:22:095]: Doing action: InstallFinalize
Action 11:21:22: InstallFinalize.
Action start 11:21:22: InstallFinalize.
MSI (s) (24:64) [11:21:22:095]: User policy value 'DisableRollback' is 0
MSI (s) (24:64) [11:21:22:095]: Machine policy value 'DisableRollback' is 0
Action 11:21:22: RollbackCleanup. Removing backup files
MSI (s) (24:64) [11:21:22:585]: Creating MSIHANDLE (13) of type 790536 for thread 8036
MSI (s) (24:74) [11:21:22:595]: Invoking remote custom action. DLL: C:\Windows\Installer\MSIAE3F.tmp, Entrypoint: _KSTInstallSC@4
MSI (s) (24:74) [11:21:22:595]: Generating random cookie.
MSI (s) (24:74) [11:21:22:645]: Created Custom Action Server with PID 1160 (0x488).
MSI (s) (24:5C) [11:21:22:765]: Running as a service.
MSI (s) (24:5C) [11:21:22:775]: Hello, I'm your 32bit Elevated Non-remapped custom action server.
CustomAction _3F7B94EF_231A_421E_BF8B_C0760F3B266E returned actual error code 1157 (note this may not be 100% accurate if translation happened inside sandbox) MSI (s) (24:74) [11:21:22:975]: Closing MSIHANDLE (13) of type 790536 for thread 8036
MSI (s) (24:64) [11:21:22:975]: Note: 1: 1723 2: _3F7B94EF_231A_421E_BF8B_C0760F3B266E 3: _KSTInstallSC@4 4: C:\Windows\Installer\MSIAE3F.tmp
MSI (s) (24:64) [11:21:22:975]: Note: 1: 2262 2: Error 3: -2147287038
MSI (c) (8C:0C) [11:21:22:975]: Note: 1: 2262 2: Error 3: -2147287038
DEBUG: Error 2835: The control ErrorIcon was not found on dialog ErrorDialog The installer has encountered an unexpected error installing this package. This may indicate a problem with this package. The error code is 2835. The arguments are: ErrorIcon, ErrorDialog,
Error 1723. There is a problem with this Windows Installer package. A DLL required for this install to complete could not be run. Contact your support personnel or package vendor. Action _3F7B94EF_231A_421E_BF8B_C0760F3B266E, entry: _KSTInstallSC@4, library: C:\Windows\Installer\MSIAE3F.tmp
MSI (s) (24:64) [11:21:25:796]: Note: 1: 2262 2: Error 3: -2147287038
MSI (s) (24:64) [11:21:25:796]: Product: KST -- Error 1723. There is a problem with this Windows Installer package. A DLL required for this install to complete could not be run. Contact your support personnel or package vendor. Action _3F7B94EF_231A_421E_BF8B_C0760F3B266E, entry: _KSTInstallSC@4, library: C:\Windows\Installer\MSIAE3F.tmp
I have looked in Visual Studio and there are no custom actions that match anything in the log file.
Something to note, after installing VS2015 on a test PC, the installation worked fine, so it's definitely missing a DLL or something. But installing VS2015 on all of our clients' machines isn't practical.
Is there any way I can package the files needed along with the msi? And if so, how can I find the name of the depended DLL files?
Depending on how you built this package, there's probably a better way to track this down in the project. But let's pretend we received this package and want to make it work despite it being faulty.
You know the entry point is _KSTInstallSC@4, which gives you something to look for in the Target column of the CustomAction table in the built MSI using your favorite MSI editing program. The record in that table should refer with its Source column to a row in the Binary table that contains the DLL. Once you extract that DLL, you can use any tool that shows you dependencies, such as Dependency Walker, CFF Explorer, or even dumpbin /imports.
As for how to fix it, on a single machine just install the dependency. But to fix it in the package, you will probably have to change how the DLL is being built. For instance, you might make it import the C++ runtime statically so it has no unusual external run time dependencies.