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I've got a Visual Studio Setup Project that uses the msiexec.exe file to create an Uninstall item as outlined in >> THIS << article on SO.

The Installer does not run.

When I launch the installer by double-clicking the setup.exe file, the "Please wait while setup launches" screen barely blips on the screen before I am confronted with my error.

Error Code 2727

The Text is (for search functions):

The installer has encountered an unexpected error installing this package. This may indicate a problem with this package. The error code is 2727.

I have found a set of MSI Error Codes, and Error Code 2727 translates to

The directory entry '[2]' does not exist in the Directory table.

Could someone guide me towards fixing this? What should I do?

[UPDATE]

At the suggestion of Cosmin Pirvu, I have created an error log for my installer. After looking it over, it appears my installation error could be the result of having a link to the Not Installed file msiexec.exe that I use in conjunction with my Project's [ProductCode] to create an Uninstall link.

The log file shown below appears to indicate that my installation fails when the installer attempts to create a temporary file for msiexec.exe, then it has another failure when it tries to display the Error Icon.

The file >> install.log on Google Sites << is my Error Log file's output (Hint: just do a search for Return value 3 to get to the errors).

[UPDATE 2]

I have an Uninstall link in the setup project that links back to the batch file uninstall.bat in my main project:

@echo off
%windir%\system32\msiexec.exe /x %1

The Arguments to the Uninstall link is only [ProductCode], since the /x switch is hard coded into the batch file.

[Solution]:

The Visual Studio Installer was not creating a folder that had some required DLLs in it.

Community
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  • Try creating a verbose installation log to see what triggers the error. – Cosmin Jul 26 '11 at 21:12
  • Give me some hints on how to go about doing that. There isn't even anything in the Event Viewer other than the error message I am thrown. Maybe my `app.config` file is not right. ??? –  Jul 26 '11 at 22:11
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    Perhaps this article will help: http://setupanddeployment.com/debugging/msi-log/ – Cosmin Jul 27 '11 at 10:36
  • Kindly put that as an answer. I'm going to update my question to include the log file I generated. –  Jul 27 '11 at 14:08

5 Answers5

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Old question, I know - just wanted to add in some information that helped me with the Windows Installer project in Visual Studio 2015, in case anyone comes across this topic.

I got the same error message, 2727. My issue was that I was including my source code into an "src" folder in the installation directory. When looking at the output files for the source, I noticed several files like this:

\obj\Release\\TemporaryGeneratedFile_5937a670-0e60-4077-877b-f7221da3dda1.cs

Yes, it included that extra slash after Release. I had to add an exclusion (right click Source Files output -> ExcludeFilter) to exclude these files from installing. I added "*Temporary*" to exclude only these files.

Maybe someone else can explain why these temporary files were generated, all I know is that this fixed the issue. Hopefully this will help someone else looking for this topic.

Adam Elders
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The first step should be creating an installation log to see what triggers the error.

From the log you posted, it seems like your MSI tries to use a directory which is not in Directory table. Are you using any merge modules or special custom actions? If so, try to determine if they try to use a directory from your package.

You mentioned something about an uninstall shortcut. Can you give us more details?

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Cosmin
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  • Hi Cosmin. I've updated my question to give more information on the shortcut, but basically it just points to a *batch file* that I have included in my solution. –  Jul 27 '11 at 19:01
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    The shortcut is ok. The problem is caused by something else. Can you post the MSI somewhere or send it to me by email so I can take a look? – Cosmin Jul 27 '11 at 21:05
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I know its a Old question, but like @Riccaforte I was having some trouble to fix this in Visual Studio 2015. What I did was just delete all my Source Files inside my Aplication Folder, and I don't know why, but it did the trick.

Andre Aquiles
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If you remove a directory or directories from the Directory Table, This will cause an issue with other tables still using those directory variables.

Dennis
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My 2727 error message was the result of a *.png file I had added as a link to my project. "Copy to Output Directory" was set to "Copy if newer". Somehow the Visual Studio Setup Project was not able to resolve the path to the *.png file and added an invalid path to the installer.
LessMSI helped to find the problem https://lessmsi.activescott.com/ and removing the link in the project and adding the files in the installer project solved the problem. Hope someone finds this helpful regards

MeMyselfAndI
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