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[Jim S]

We use InstallShield Express 3.53 to build our setups, then modify SETUP.INI to use the 'Update by Reinstalling' technique.

A small number of our users are getting an Error 1155 when they try to start our installation. By running msiexec directly from the command line, we get this error message:

"Installation package can not be opened, verify installation package exists and can be opened or contact application vendor to verify that this is a valid installer package."

We found that the installation will run by directly opening the msi package, but we can't have our users install that way because we need to set properties from the command line.

This error has occurred on Windows 95 and Windows 2000 systems, so it is not OS specific. AFAIK, this only happens for new installations.

Some of the things we have tried so far:
* Verified that Windows Installer is updated to most current version.
* Verified that Temp folder exists and can be written to.
* Copied installation files from CD to hard drive then run setup from hard drive.

None of these things has helped, and we are starting to run out of ideas. I am trying to get an msievent.log for these systems. If anyone else has any ideas, we would be glad to hear them. Thanks in advance!

[Jim S]

This problem appears to be caused by a long filename issue on Windows 95. The name of our .msi file is a long filename.

We copied the installation to a C:\Test folder, then shortened the name of the .msi file to a short filename, then ran the Setup.exe, and the error was gone!

Of course, now the question is, what can I do about this? I am using the 'Update by Reinstalling' technique. Windows Installer gives an error 1316 if you try to change the name of the source file on a system with a previous install, and I don't want to ask my customers to uninstall if they don't have to.

Any ideas? Is it possible to change the name of the original sourcefile in the registry? What keys would I be looking for?