Windows DesktopAppConverter

I have been following Eugene Dakin’s guide to getting an app up at the MS store. After going through the MS requirements I have been stopped without any error display to tell me what is wrong. The terminal command I used is:’

DesktopAppConverter.exe -Installer “C:\Users\TJ Hanson\Desktop\Setup Files\ANOVA OneWay Setup.exe” -InstallerArguments “/S” -Destination “Users\TJ Hanson\Desktop\Windows Setup” -PackageName “ANOVAOneWay” -Publisher “CN=TJHanson” -Version “10.1.0.0” -MakeAppx -Verbose -Sign

and the last part of the -verbose output is:

Running Installer in Isolated Environment

VERBOSE: No installer valid exit codes specified. Using defaults: 0
VERBOSE: Replace any occurence of <log_folder> in -InstallerArguments with C:\shared\logs
VERBOSE: Creating Isolated Environment
VERBOSE: Starting the Isolated Environment
VERBOSE: Logging known folder locations in Isolated Environment
VERBOSE: Command line: “C:\shared\dac\bin\KnownFolderDump.exe” “C:\shared\dac\out\KnownFolders.xml”
VERBOSE: Waiting for known folder mapping process to finish in Isolated Environment
VERBOSE: Running installer command in Isolated Environment
VERBOSE: Command line: “C:\shared\installer\ANOVA OneWay Setup.exe” /S
VERBOSE: Waiting for installer process to complete inside Isolated Environment

At this point there appears to be a hang. I’ve let it run for a couple hours to make sure it’s a hang and not just doing something behind the scenes.

Has anyone else been stopped at this point? What command am I missing? or what am I doing wrong?

Thank you, TJ

I found another reference to this problem on the web. It said to change the /S to /verysilent

Amazingly, that worked. Now it’s complaining that my certificate is out of date/invalid, which it is not. And on it goes.

TJ

Hello TJ,

Sorry for the delay in responding, as my day-job has been keeping me busy. I’ll start digging into this tomorrow and see what has changed to make a Desktop App for Windows Store.

Windows has changed a few things since I last wrote the article. I am currently stuck getting the E_NO_COMPATIBLE_EXPANDED_BASE_IMAGE error, even though the image and the Windows versions match (Version 1703, OS Build 15063.483).

The WIM is Windows_InsiderPreview_DAC_15063.wim and is installed in the correct directory C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Images, but no joy. I will need more time to figure out what the issue is.

This is on a fresh new build of Windows 10 (no virtual machine).

Hi TJ,

I have updated the instructions on building an installer for Windows Store with Xojo at: windows-store-sign-up.

My guess (and thats all it is at this point) is that the path length and spaces within the path sometimes cause issues with DesktopAppConverter. Try and remove the spaces or try to create the DOS path version of the file locations. Here is an example of the difference:

C:\\Program Files (x86)\\ //Doesnt seem to work with this path C:\\Progra~2\\ //seems to work with this path

An option is to put the executable in a path such as C:\Test\OneWaySetup.exe. Again, remove the spaces as this sometimes causes an issue - and I don’t know why.

Edit: C:\\Program Files (x86) is C:\\Progra~2, and C:\\Program Files  is C:\\Progra~1