1

I am learning how to deploy an MSI application to a Windows 10 client from a Windows 2012 Server via GPO method. In Windows Server, I have created a new GPO package with the following settings:

enter image description here

However, it failed to install in the Windows 10 client and the MSI log (that was setup with name Logging and value voicewarmupx in the registry) generated some text files in C:\Windows\Temp. Only one of the text file seemed useful and it contains the following:

enter image description here

I believe the error starts at line 22 because lines 1-21 produced by both successful and failed installations will look very similar. The lines only start to really differ between successful and failed installations from line 22 onwards.

I learned that error 1605 is a very general, catch-all error and so I'm trying to find a way to force Windows Installer to be even more verbose so that I may know exactly what led to error 1605.

How do I do this? Or may I know where in Windows can I find further info that may have resulted in causing this error 1605?

John Evans Solachuk
  • 1,953
  • 5
  • 31
  • 67
  • If you have problems with a particular MSI you should try with another one. I don't use this form of deployment, but certain MSI files have constructs that make them fail remote deployment. What is the software involved? – Stein Åsmul Mar 26 '21 at 14:37
  • @SteinÅsmul I am still unable to solve this issue so I have created a more specific question. Hopefully, it may address all your questions : https://stackoverflow.com/questions/66849350/why-doesnt-installation-of-multi-language-msi-work-via-gpo – John Evans Solachuk Mar 29 '21 at 06:05

1 Answers1

1

Please see this follow-up: Why doesn't installation of multi-language MSI work via GPO?

1605: It looks like you might be running an uninstall and msiexec.exe returns "This action is only valid for products that are currently installed". In other words the product is not installed so the uninstall fails. Please verify.

Disk Space: If this is not the case, please check the available disk space on the affected computer. There is another Windows Installer Error code 1605 relating to out of disk space. Disk space cleanup tips (longer version).

Windows Installer Error Messages: Two locations in the SDK for finding error messages related to Windows Installer:

There is also the MagNumDB (The Magical Number Database): https://www.magnumdb.com/ - essentially a search engine for the Windows SDK. A comprehensive, online database of Microsoft SDK information of various types. Try to look up an error code. An answer on error codes.

GPO: Some links on Active Directory / GPO deployment:

I should add that most people end up using a distribution system such as SCCM (actually it is "Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager" - MEMCM now and was SMS before) to deploy software. There are several reasons for this that I will not try to list entirely, but - despite my lack of experience with AD / GPO distribution - it seems to lack flexibility and proper distribution systems are needed for large environments where you have replicating package shares and huge distributions of packages to thousands of machines.

Windows Logging: I have this previous answer on MSI logging. The "voicewarmupx" parameter should enable all available logging (x is for extra debugging information on newer OS versions), short of the "flush to log" option - you enable it by adding the ! switch. This is a special mechanism which prevents the log from being written in batches. With this flag enabled the log gets written line by line - which slows down the installation a lot, but no log buffer is lost from crashes. It is good when you need to debug crashing MSI custom actions and other complex issues. It is a debugging construct only in my opinion (since it is so slow).

Event Viewer: Also be sure to check the Event Viewer for any error messages or information that can hide deep in the logs (and hence be more apparent in the event logs). Hold down Windows Key + Tap R => eventvwr => Enter.

Links:

Stein Åsmul
  • 39,960
  • 25
  • 91
  • 164