AppX package creation error 162

[mabe]

I’m trying to create Appx package from normal Installaware setup version X6, I filled up all the required fields as they appear in Microsoft developer settings, in (Finalizing AppX package) this error always appears:
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InstallAware to UWP AppX
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Failed to create APPX package!
Please check your project and try again.

Error code: 162
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OK
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what is the problem?

[FrancescoT]

Dear Mabe,

are you using a licensed version of IA?

Which is the exact installed version?
- you can check the exact version from Add Remove Program under Control Panel)

Which is the exact build number?
- to check your build number; from IA IDE switch to "Project view" then select the "version" Button from the top "Ribbon" menu bar.

Regards

[mabe]

Hi Francesco,

- No I'm using the trial version.

- The installed version number is 23.1.0.2017.

- The build number is 06.13.2017 (Antani Theory)

[FrancescoT]

Dear Mabe,

are you able to build a standard setup file using the same project you tried to use for the APPX?

Regards

[mabe]

Hi Francesco,

Yes, I'm able to build a standard setup file, i also tried to create simple setup using just one executable and one shortcut, same error appears,

Actually this feature directly affects our decision to buy a licence of the software, i must be sure that this feature works well to help us publish our softwares to windows store smoothly after each setup creation.

Regards,

[FrancescoT]

Dear Mabe,

this is very very strange. I have created personally hundreds APPX without any problem.

Anyway, can you please post a very very minimal IA project that replicates the issue?
This can be just a dummy project created from scratch (ex. based on Basic Template), which installs just one exe (it will be fine any kind of EXE) and one shortcut.

Let me know.

Regards

[mabe]

Hello Francesco,

Attached sample test setup, hope this helps figure out the problem, I tried different configurations ex: Windows 10 x86, Windows 10 x64, Windows server 2012, same issue, but sometimes same message but the error code becomes 180.

thanks.

[FrancescoT]

Dear Mabe,

please find attached my edited copy of your original project. This completes the APPX generation as expected.

The error you had, it was causes by two reasons;

a- the file-name "rufus-2.12.exe" contains illegal characters ( '-' and '.' ) which causes a problem with the APPX validation process.

The IA APPX converter already checks for the presence of possible illegal characters in various phases of the APPX generation. However, it's seems that for what concerns specifically those characters allowed as "name of the executable", Microsoft has recently updated this restriction. Currently, also the '-' (minus symbol) character is part of the list of the illegal characters ... but this is still not reported with the official Microsoft documentation.

b- the "Description" field of the "Create Shortcut" command has been left black. In reality this should not be a problem, because this is not a mandatory field. Typically when the "Description" field is left blank, the IA APPX converter fills this field with the value assigned to the "shortcut name" automatically. However, under some circumstances, I just found that this doesn't occur as expected.

-------------------------

At any rate, I have already sent a note to our development team to inform them about the above points.

Please accept our apologies for the inconvenience.

Regards

[mabe]

Hello Francesco,

I tested your edited copy of the projects, it worked fine, thank you very much,

Actually, our setup projects contain a lot of files must have (.) or (-) in the name (ex: Assembly names (DevExpress.Data.v16.2.dll)), for that, I will wait for a new version of InstallAware that solves this issue to retest AppX creation.

Regards.

[FrancescoT]

Dear Mabe,

please note that the restriction described at point #a, it only affects the name of the executable that gets packaged with the APPX. Any other additional component, as the assemblies used at Runtime by the executable, are not subject to this restriction

Regards

[mabe]

Hello Francesco,

Your notes helped me a lot, thanks.

I found a problem related to nested folders, if i nested multiple folders, and I used wildcards to get all their contents with the option (Include subfolders if wildcards used), the error 162 appears, can you please investigate this problem?

Attached a sample test project.

Regards.

[FrancescoT]

To inform that the latest IA X6 Creators Update (23.11) fixes the issues here reported.

PLEASE NOTE!
This update requires a new re-generated license file to activate the product.

Regards