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Troubleshooting Application Installation

  • Article

4/19/2010

During .cab file installation, the user might be prompted with a dialog box with the following message: "You must restart the device to complete the installation. Click OK to restart, or Cancel to continue." This occurs if your installation application overwrites a DLL that is already running. The install proceeds because the MoveFile function works with files running, but deleting the backup file fails because the DeleteFile function does not support deleting files without an exclusive lock. This same type of installation interruption can also occur if your installation application uses shadowing during the install.

Application installation can fail due to the configuration of the operating system security on Windows Mobile devices. If the Unsigned Themes policy and Unsigned CABS policy settings require signed .cab files, and the application .cab file is unsigned, the installation fails. You can use Microsoft Authenticode tools to sign .cab files**. **

If you have signed the application .cab file and either the file or the certificate used to sign the file is included in the revocation list, the application installation fails. Be sure the revocation list contains the hashes of revoked certificates and .cab files, as well as binary files. **

If you have signed the application .cab file and the Software Publisher Certificate (SPC) store does not contain a matching root certificate for the certificate chain used to sign the file, the application installation fails. You can add a matching root certificate to the SPC store to enable the application to install.

On PDAs running Windows Mobile 2003, signed .cab files will not install. To fix this issue, replace the third DWORD in the .cab file with the size of the entire .cab file in bytes.

See Also

Other Resources

Security Policies
CertificateStore Configuration Service Provider
Windows Mobile Device Security Model