Bundle crashes at welcome screen when .NET 3.5 not present

[jbogari]

Continuing from similar thread:

Bundle produced and tested on source system with .NET 3.5 present runs normally. Log file exhibits the following:

[67D4:78DC][2022-04-28T15:23:59]i000: Running detect BA function
[67D4:78DC][2022-04-28T15:23:59]i000: Running detect BA function
[67D4:78DC][2022-04-28T15:23:59]i000: Setting string variable 'Variable1' to value 'String value'
[67D4:78DC][2022-04-28T15:23:59]i000: Setting numeric variable 'Variable2' to value 1234
[67D4:78DC][2022-04-28T15:23:59]i000: Setting string variable 'Variable4' to value 'Job Control 5 Alpha Release v0.3'
[67D4:78DC][2022-04-28T15:23:59]i000: Setting string variable 'Variable5' to value ''
[67D4:78DC][2022-04-28T15:23:59]i000: Unsetting variable 'Variable6'
[67D4:78DC][2022-04-28T15:23:59]i000: Setting string variable 'Variable7' to value 'WixBundleVersion=0.3.0.0'
[67D4:78DC][2022-04-28T15:23:59]i000: Setting string variable 'InstallFolder' to value 'C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v3.5\'
[67D4:78DC][2022-04-28T15:23:59]i000: Setting string variable 'ModulePath' to value 'C:\WINDOWS\Temp\{8D828B30-4F53-4EDD-936D-D0C513BBA731}\.ba\'
[67D4:78DC][2022-04-28T15:23:59]i000: Setting version variable 'FileVersion' to value '0.3.0.0'
[67D4:58BC][2022-04-28T15:23:59]i100: Detect begin, 6 packages

On newer Windows platforms with .NET 3.5 absent this is same excerpt after failure at launch:

[1828:1F2C][2022-04-28T12:19:07]i000: Running detect BA function
[1828:1F2C][2022-04-28T12:19:07]i000: Running detect BA function
[1828:1F2C][2022-04-28T12:19:07]i000: Setting string variable 'Variable1' to value 'String value'
[1828:1F2C][2022-04-28T12:19:07]i000: Setting numeric variable 'Variable2' to value 1234
[1828:1F2C][2022-04-28T12:19:07]i000: Setting string variable 'Variable4' to value 'Job Control 5 Alpha Release v0.3'
[1828:1F2C][2022-04-28T12:19:07]i000: Unsetting variable 'Variable5'
[1828:1F2C][2022-04-28T12:19:07]i000: Unsetting variable 'Variable6'
[1828:1F2C][2022-04-28T12:19:07]i000: Setting string variable 'Variable7' to value 'WixBundleVersion=0.3.0.0'
[1828:1F2C][2022-04-28T12:19:07]e000: Error 0x80070002: Failed to open registry key.
[1828:1F2C][2022-04-28T12:19:07]e000: Error 0x80070002: Failed calling detect BA function.

Per Rob's reply, is there some way to coerce light to use or prefer a specific .NET version when building?

light -nologo -spdb -ext WixUtilExtension -ext WixNetFxExtension -ext WixBalExtensionExt.dll obj\%1.wixobj -o %2.%3

I agree there are plentiful ways to specify that requirement for packages in a chain or within an installer, but in this case things seem to crash before we get to evaluating any properties such as:

	<Fragment>
		<PropertyRef Id="NETFRAMEWORK35"/>
		<Condition Message='This setup requires the .NET Framework 3.5 to be present on this system.'>
			<![CDATA[NETFRAMEWORK35 == #1]]>
		</Condition>	

Which is built into the bundle. This property/condition has no effect on the failure at launch.

Either I'm looking for the wrong thing or in the wrong place. What is it that controls the failed lookup for 'InstallFolder'?

Thanks.

[robmen]

See this WiX documentation on how to install .NET Framework and customize the Framework used for your BA.

[rseanhall]

Error 0x80070002: Failed calling detect BA function.

The detect BA function is your code. If you don't want this missing registry key to cause your bundle to fail (not crash, it wouldn't log anything if it crashed), then update your detect BA function to not return a failing HRESULT.

Per Rob's reply, is there some way to coerce light to use or prefer a specific .NET version when building?

You are asking the wrong question. Your bundle is failing at runtime, which has nothing to do which version of .NET was used to build it. Your BA functions code is presumably native code that has no .NET Framework dependencies. The WiX bundle code definitely has no .NET dependencies.

PropertyRef and Condition elements

These don't do anything in bundles, they are for MSI only. v4 warns about this, but v3 silently ignored them. See Rob's link for how to do it bundles, along with bal:Condition.

What is it that controls the failed lookup for 'InstallFolder'?

You have included a BAFunctions.dll in your bundle. That's not WiX code.

[jbogari]

Sean, thanks for your feedback. I think I see what happened now with inherited project code.

I'm certainly not experienced enough with Bundles to know when something foreign slips in! I thought that was a standard component.