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installationwindows-installerinstallshield

"Error 1324. Unable to update the password." message appears when running installer built using command line interface (ISCmdBld.exe) in InstallShield

We are using InstallShield 2020 Professional SP3, on Windows 10 Pro.

We have an automated build server that automates Install Shield (via its command line interface, 'ISCmdBld.exe') to build an Installer for our Internal Product on demand. To accomplish this, it calls a PowerShell (.ps1) script that gathers all the pertinent information (such as the Product Key GUID, binaries, etc.), and passes parameters for the paths and Product Key into IsCmdBld.exe. For the past few years, this process has been working more or less flawlessly, up until recently when our Installer is giving us the following error almost immediately after its launched. Looking thru the MSI Log file, it appears this occurs after the "ResolveSource" action.

Bizarre 'Password' error from Install Shield Generated Installer

There are two things to note here: 1. Our installer, in no way has any business changing any password in the system. When I google error, "1324", it appears to be a message from Windows when a user attempts to change a password that doesn't meet the complexity requirements. 2. If I build this installer manually using the Install Shield GUI application, everything works as intended.

Solution

  • As it turns out, there was a Linefeed ("\n") after the GUID in our ProductKey.txt file. Our PowerShell Script reads the string data in from this file and passes it to ISCmdBuild.exe. If there are any extraneous characters after the GUID that is passed into the "-z ProductCode " parameter, it causes the Install to engage into some questionable behavior, much like errors in Pointer arithmetic do when developing in unmanaged languages like, C or C++. I know this is likely rare, but I wanted to ask and answer the question up here on Stackoverflow.com just in case anyone else encounters this issue. I have been working with Revenera (Flexera) software support and hopefully, this [now] known issue we experienced will be documented. This simple linefeed jammed me up for days.