DIRCA_CHECKFX Return Value 3 - VS 2013 Deployment Project

Question

I have the dreaded issue from my attempted installation of an MSI:

MSI (c) (98:B0) [18:01:22:818]: Invoking remote custom action. DLL: C:\\DOCUME~1\\sspencer         


        

Answer 1

Visual Studio deployment projects were so horrible that Microsoft removed them from Visual Studio 2012. Developers were so ignorant as to why they were horrible that they begged and begged for them to come back. The smart guys at Microsoft who understand MSI left the building and the people remaining caved to the developers asking for it to come back.

One of those really smart guys summed it up perfectly in a tweet:

The return of vdproj: Headshots, people, or they come back as walkers.

I wrote an article on my feelings: Visual Studio Installer Resurrection

So let's talk about the way the tool is failing you this time. Take a moment to read this article written by one of the other really smart ones to leave MSFT:

Zataoca: Custom actions are (generally) an admission of failure.

VDRPOJ created a custom action to do something MSI could have done natively and now it's failing. So let's say you find the DLL and fix it to work on your machine. What happens when you ship your MSI to 1,000,000 machines? How many machines will it fail out there? How many support calls will you get? How many tweets will you get that your product sucks?

Simply put, I'd redo your installer using a better tool such as Windows Installer XML and Industrial Strength Windows Installer XML. If you have the money to spend InstallShield Professional is a good choice also.