One solution is to allow anonymous authentication on the XBAP and perform the required authentication from within the application.

1. Look at article at 923101 and removed all the DVD and CD ROMS

2. Look at the following registry hives to find if there are any invalid characters like '\'

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell

Folders

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell

Folders

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell

Folders

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders

3. Turn on verbose logs

Set the following registry key.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\windows\Installer

Create a string Value  and name it as:  Logging

Provide the value data as : voicewarmup

A file with name like  MSIxxxxx.log in the Start->Run->%temp% folder.

Example:

MSI Snippet:

============

Action start 11:59:07: CostInitialize.

MSI (c) (88:04) [11:59:07:305]: Machine policy value 'MaxPatchCacheSize' is 10

MSI (c) (88:04) [11:59:07:305]: Note: 1: 1325 2: Installer

MSI (c) (88:04) [11:59:07:305]: Note: 1: 1325 2: Installer

MSI (c) (88:04) [11:59:07:305]: Note: 1: 1336 2: 5 3: P:\

MSI (c) (88:04) [11:59:07:320]: PROPERTY CHANGE: Adding TARGETDIR property. Its value is 'D:\'.

MSI (c) (88:04) [11:59:07:320]: Note: 1: 1324 2: Program Files 3: 1

Error 1324.The folder path 'Program Files' contains an invalid character.

MSI (c) (88:04) [11:59:14:617]: Product: Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 -- Error 1324.The folder path 'Program Files' contains an invalid character.

Action ended 11:59:14: CostFinalize. Return value 3.

=================

4. Check if there are any hard drives and remove those. You could also check in the disk management to see if all the drives have been displayed there

If you are still getting the same error see if you could install any sample msi package and check the verbose logs and if you find the following property ‘Disableuserinstalls’ set to 1 follow these steps

https://support.microsoft.com/kb/121007

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\FileSystem

Select the NtfsDisable8dot3NameCreation entry and change the value to 0

Select the Win31FileSystem entry and change the value to 0

Bingo that should do the trick!!!!

I was getting unknown publisher prompt when installing the application from the intranet and warning message incase of internet prompting me to install the certificate.

The reason is when installing the application from Intranet you are expected to have all the certificates installed for your application readily availble for your domain.

Incase of internet we get the warning prompt as we are not expected to have all the certificates that's available.

Bootstrap Manifest Generator could be downloaded from https://code.msdn.microsoft.com/bmg/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=1567

Download and open the sql exe in the BMG.

Under 'Properties' tab.

Add the following the argument

/qn INSTANCENAME= ..........ADDLOCAL=All ADDUSERASADMIN=1 SQLAUTOSTART=1 SECURITYMODE=SQL SQLCMDPASSWORD=###### SAPWD=###### INSTALLSQLDIR="C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\" SQL_DISABLENETWORKPROTOCOLS=0 

Under the 'Exit Codes' 

Uncheck the option 'Use Default System Exit Codes'

Build the setup

When installing the application on client machine. Getting message on screen "Unable to install or run the application. The application requires that assembly Microsoft.VisualStudio.ProjectAggregator Version 8.0.0.0 be installed in the GAC Assembly Cache first. Please contact your system administrator."

I went and checked in the application files that it has been included as Prerequisite auto and changed that to include started getting message on screen saying that "Strong name signature not valid for this assembly Microsoft.VisualStudio.ProjectAggregator.dll."

Set the file to exclude.

I started to get the same message for bunch of dlls
Microsoft.VisualStudio.Shell.dll
Microsoft.VSDesigner.dll

All these assemblies were from the Visual Studio SDK

There 2 ways you could get the app to work either exclude all these files or add
Visual Studio SDK as a pre req.

LaunchApp.exe
MyAppName.exe
MyAppName.exe.application
MyAppName.exe.deploy
MyAppName.exe.manifest
MyAppName.vshost.exe
dfsvc.exe
dfsvc.ni.exe
AppLaunch.exe
rundll32.exe
dfshim.dll
dfdll.dll