Non-systematic "Could not generate uninstaller" error on Windows 8.1

Paquet Builder
1

Hello,

From time to time, when launching the installation of our software package (in silent-mode) on Windows 8.1, the following message box pops up at the end of the installation: “Error: could not generate uninstaller”. Nevertheless, the Uninst.exe and Uninst.log files have been created and do not look corrupted.

We are currently using PB 3.1 (we cannot test it with 3.2 because of another pending issue).

Do you know where this error comes from? This issue is quite blocking since the automatic installation on our system is hung by the popup.

Thanks.

2

We’ll try to reproduce the issue, thank you.

3

Hello,
This problem has still been observed with Paquet Builder 3.6.1. Moreover, it is also present under Windows 10. Any chance this could be fixed in version 3.7?

Thanks.

4

It appeared that it could be an antivirus program blocking the uninstaller EXE from being generated. For instance, antivirus in aggressive mode can prevent running EXE from creating other EXE files.

5

Actually, on our automatic test systems, we do not have any antivirus program running, even Windows Defender is completely disabled for tests performances reasons (antivirus and anti-spyware). The only active protection is Windows Firewall, I don’t know if this one can interfere. Do you know precisely at which phase of installation this error is issued? Perhaps it would then be possible to do some workaround in the custom actions.

6

With “Error: could not generate uninstaller”, is there any additional error code?
Before running the package, is there already an uninstall log from a previous install?

7

We didn’t see any additional error code (besides the “-1” which is general, I guess) and there is no log from previous install since we always start from a clean situation. Here is the test sequence:

  1. The computer boots and starts Windows 8.1
  2. The task scheduler launches our Paquet Builder installer from the command-line at log on (we use automatic log on). Note that our installer is launched from the local account’s Temp folder, I don’t know if this might be a problem or not.
  3. The error sometimes occurs here and blocks the process.
  4. Some tests are executed.
  5. Our Paquet Builder installer is launched from the command-line to uninstall the package, + some cleanup.
  6. The computer is restarted

We are currently performing a test with Automatic Maintenance disabled, as explained here:
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows8_1-performance/how-to-permanently-disable-automatic-maintenance/d82d9d88-4383-4664-8dee-d2f1bb99ab41?auth=1

We suspect that some tasks from Automatic Maintenance might access file and or folders among which our Paquet Builder installer files. We haven’t seen the problem after one week, but it is infrequent, so we’ll check further during a couple of weeks to be sure it no longer occurs.

Did you have any feedback of other Paquet Builder issues due to Automatic Maintenance under Windows 8.1?

8

If all files are in the “Temp” folder, maybe Automatic Maintenance tries to analyze them to determine whether they are real temp files or something else in order to delete them?
No feedback nor other error report regarding this though.