5 replies to this topic

[GSB]

I have a problem using an iss-file when installing SQL Server 2000:
1. I uninstall an existing SQL server
2. I install MyApp (made with ISP 6.22), that shells a silent installation of SQL Server 2000 with LaunchAppAndWait
3. Then I sometimes get this error: "An internal error has occured on C:\Documents.ins. Unable to load installation instructions. Error 703"

The Temp folder is "C:\Documents and settings" in this case, and the error occures on Win2000 and XP. If we manually set the temp folder to i.e. C:\Temp, we solve the problem. But what is the reason we get this error ?
Another observation is that when we do the SQL installation outside MyApp, and not silent, we don't get this error. So it might have something to do with the iss file ?

GSB

[Blake Miller Wonder]

You need to make sure the long path (especially when spaces are involved) is quoted correctly when passing it in as the command line argument to the setup program.

From the description of your problem, it looks like Setup.Exe interpeted "C:\Documents and Settings\XXX.Iss" as a command that terminated at the first space it saw!  

It tried to find "C:\Documents.Iss" as a silent install script and run it, then it failed when no such file was to be found.

[GSB]

Thanks for your answer.
I already had ensured that the iss file name was quoted, as you suggest too. But from your answer I saw that it still had to be this parameter that was causing my troubles. And further investigation led me to this information:
When passing a long file name as a command line argument to the setup program, I need double quotes, not only single. (IS documentation on LongPathToQuote).

GSB

[GSB]

I must reconsider my last reply on this topic:
My English vocabulary is not too good, I understand now, because I thought that a double quote was 2 of these: ", and that a single quote was only one ". But now I know that it is the " and the ' that is meant. (In Norwegian we have 2 totaly different names on these 2 tokens).

SO: I already have double quotes on my filename, but it seems like the Sqlsetup.exe get some trouble later on with it's own use of SUPPORTDIR, because it is the "setup.ins" that is referred to in the error message, not the iss-file that is my parameter. Besides, my name of the iss-file is SUPPORTDIR ^ "SQLperLC.iss".
Sorry to have mislead anyone here.
My problem is still there, I think.

[Stefan Krueger]

Try something like this:

szIssPath = SUPPORTDIR ^ "SQLperLC.iss";
LongPathToQuote(szIssPath, TRUE);

Then use szIssPath in your LaunchAppAndWait call.
If that doesn#t work, try LongPathToShortPath.

[GSB]

I already did what you suggest, but now I see that the problem is in the SQL Server installation, and not in my script that is starting it up.
I tried to run this from outside my own IS6 script:
D:\SQL2Kper\x86\setup\setupsql.exe -s -SMS - f1 "C:\SQLsetup.iss"
I don't refer to the temp folder at all, but I still get the same error message (703) when my temp folder name contains spaces.

I have now sent a mail to a Microsoft newsgroup.

Thanks.

GSB