Broken Publish in VB.net

Question

I have managed to break my Project>Publish ability in a vb.net project. I wanted to include some files with the installer and tried doing this using Project>Properties>Resources>Files and Add Resource. That failed so I went back there and removed the resources. I can publish the project but when I try to run the setup.exe it gives a 'contact the vendor error' and looking at the log has an error like below. I'm stuck.

ERROR SUMMARY Below is a summary of the errors, details of these errors are listed later in the log. * An exception occurred while determining trust. Following failure messages were detected: + Value does not fall within the expected range.

• Activation of C:\Documents and Settings\Bob&Sue\My Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Projects\Spiffy\Spiffy\publish\Spiffy.application resulted in exception. Following failure messages were detected: + Value does not fall within the expected range.

I created a new project (Junk28APR12) which just has Form1 and Label1 (with text 'Hello World!') and that will publish but again I can't successfully run the setup.exe. Here is the full error log from that:

PLATFORM VERSION INFO Windows : 5.1.2600.196608 (Win32NT) Common Language Runtime : 4.0.30319.239 System.Deployment.dll : 4.0.30319.1 (RTMRel.030319-0100) clr.dll : 4.0.30319.239 (RTMGDR.030319-2300) dfdll.dll : 4.0.30319.1 (RTMRel.030319-0100) dfshim.dll : 4.0.31106.0 (Main.031106-0000)

SOURCES Deployment url : file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/Bob&Sue/My%20Documents/Visual%20Studio%202010/Projects/Junk28APR12/Junk28APR12/publish/Junk28APR12.application Application url : file:///C:/Documents%20and%20Settings/Bob&Sue/My%20Documents/Visual%20Studio%202010/Projects/Junk28APR12/Junk28APR12/publish/Application%20Files/Junk28APR12_1_0_0_0/Junk28APR12.exe.manifest

IDENTITIES Deployment Identity : Junk28APR12.application, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=18093298bace470a, processorArchitecture=x86 Application Identity : Junk28APR12.exe, Version=1.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=18093298bace470a, processorArchitecture=x86, type=win32

APPLICATION SUMMARY * Installable application.

ERROR SUMMARY Below is a summary of the errors, details of these errors are listed later in the log. * An exception occurred while determining trust. Following failure messages were detected: + Value does not fall within the expected range. * Activation of C:\Documents and Settings\Bob&Sue\My Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Projects\Junk28APR12\Junk28APR12\publish\Junk28APR12.application resulted in exception. Following failure messages were detected: + Value does not fall within the expected range.

COMPONENT STORE TRANSACTION FAILURE SUMMARY No transaction error was detected.

WARNINGS There were no warnings during this operation.

OPERATION PROGRESS STATUS * [28/04/2012 11:12:14] : Activation of C:\Documents and Settings\Bob&Sue\My Documents\Visual Studio 2010\Projects\Junk28APR12\Junk28APR12\publish\Junk28APR12.application has started. * [28/04/2012 11:12:14] : Processing of deployment manifest has successfully completed. * [28/04/2012 11:12:14] : Installation of the application has started. * [28/04/2012 11:12:14] : Processing of application manifest has successfully completed. * [28/04/2012 11:12:15] : Found compatible runtime version 4.0.30319.

ERROR DETAILS Following errors were detected during this operation. * [28/04/2012 11:12:15] System.ArgumentException - Value does not fall within the expected range. - Source: mscorlib - Stack trace: at System.Deployment.Internal.Isolation.IDefinitionAppId.EnumAppPath() at System.ActivationContext.CreateFromNameAndManifests(ApplicationIdentity applicationIdentity, String[] manifestPaths) at System.Deployment.Application.ActivationDescription.ToActivationContext() at System.Deployment.Application.ApplicationActivator.DownloadApplication(SubscriptionState subState, ActivationDescription actDesc, Int64 transactionId, TempDirectory& downloadTemp) at System.Deployment.Application.ApplicationActivator.InstallApplication(SubscriptionState& subState, ActivationDescription actDesc) at System.Deployment.Application.ApplicationActivator.PerformDeploymentActivation(Uri activationUri, Boolean isShortcut, String textualSubId, String deploymentProviderUrlFromExtension, BrowserSettings browserSettings, String& errorPageUrl) at System.Deployment.Application.ApplicationActivator.ActivateDeploymentWorker(Object state) * [28/04/2012 11:12:15] System.ArgumentException - Value does not fall within the expected range. - Source: mscorlib - Stack trace: at System.Deployment.Internal.Isolation.IDefinitionAppId.EnumAppPath() at System.ActivationContext.CreateFromNameAndManifests(ApplicationIdentity applicationIdentity, String[] manifestPaths) at System.Deployment.Application.ActivationDescription.ToActivationContext() at System.Deployment.Application.ApplicationActivator.DownloadApplication(SubscriptionState subState, ActivationDescription actDesc, Int64 transactionId, TempDirectory& downloadTemp) at System.Deployment.Application.ApplicationActivator.InstallApplication(SubscriptionState& subState, ActivationDescription actDesc) at System.Deployment.Application.ApplicationActivator.PerformDeploymentActivation(Uri activationUri, Boolean isShortcut, String textualSubId, String deploymentProviderUrlFromExtension, BrowserSettings browserSettings, String& errorPageUrl) at System.Deployment.Application.ApplicationActivator.ActivateDeploymentWorker(Object state)

COMPONENT STORE TRANSACTION DETAILS No transaction information is available.

Answer 1

Thanks Jim, your link prompted the solution. It is because I have an '&' in my user name, so the default publish path has an '&' in it which causes the issue. I simply changed the publish path to be outside of My Documents and it worked.

I have created a Folder C:\VB_NET\ and in future things will go in there (certainly publishes and maybe future projects too).

MS know this issue and aren't going to fix it apparently. I'm fine with that, but they should make it more obvious that that is what the problem is.