Windows msi: error 1316: the specified account already exists

Question

The execution of a wix package from a bundle outputs "error 1316: The specified account already exists" during upgrade. How can a windows installer output this error code? I'm afraid there isn't much documentation about it.

We previously released a product consisting of a single msi package, and now we are preparing an upgrade which consists of a wix bundle containing a new version of this msi package. The product code and filename between the original msi package and the update haven't changed.

Edit: The msi package for now doesn't support upgrade. When the user needs to upgrade (whenever it's a major upgrade, minor upgrade or small update), he must first manually uninstall the previous package...

Edit 2: I just removed the references to util extension for compilation and the installer seems to work fine... I still need to fully test it though.

Solution 1

Like MrFusion, I ran into this problem with the uninstall/install of another program. Unfortunately, the link in that answer is no longer valid, and redirects to a page that lists many easy fix solutions, except for the only one that will help. That one, "Program Install and Uninstall", is currently available at: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/17588/fix-problems-that-block-programs-from-being-installed-or-removed

It solved the problem for me.

Solution 2

I had his same issue and since win10 doesn't allow you to run the fixit tool from the web, I did the following hack to uninstall Asus Smart Gesture on my Windows 10 laptop.

1. You need to fake the MS site into thinking your pc isn't Win10. I installed a Chrome add-in that allowed me to change the user-agent of the chrome browser to thinking I was IE9 and previous version of windows: Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; MSIE 9.0; Windows NT 6.1; Trident/5.0)

2. This allows you to see the fixit button and to download a portable version of the tool (in case you need to use it on non-networked clients)

3. I downloaded and extracted to my downloads library in a folder called fixitp.

4. If I run the exe directly, I get some nasty script error. What I did to get around that was to navigate to the Resources folder and then to the Troubleshooters folder.

5. I ran the Program_Install_and_Uninstall.diagcab which run and allowed me to uninstall successfully the Asus SmartGesture program.

6. I then installed a fresh version of ASUS's Smart Gesture from their site.

I suspect that any installed app that you can't uninstall can be resolved by this same process - just haven't run into any other that this on.

Good luck.

Solution 3

An upgrade MSI requires the MSI to have a new ProductCode, an incremented ProductVersion (in the first 3 fields) and the same UpgradeCode. So it's not clear to me that you're actually getting an upgrade, depending on what the Burn part thinks you are doing. It can't do an upgrade because you have the same ProductCode. (You need a MajorUpgrade element in your MSI to do a proper upgrade). So there is some doubt as to whether you're getting an actual full upgrade. If your intent is to replace the installed MSI with a full upgrade, and a higher versioned product then use MajorUpgrade.

So Burn may have decided to do an in-place update by reinstalling the MSI file (and that's more like a patch than an update), and that's relevant because you don't say whether you have any custom actions or WiX util functions (they are still custom actions) that create a user account. If you do, then the most likely reason for your error is that Burn reinstalled your new MSI as an update by reinstalling the MSI file, and some custom action simply ran again, and yes, that user is still there because there has not been an actual uninstall that would delete it. Or the ProductVersion of your MSI is the same and you got a maintenance mode repair, so a custom action would run again.

I'd get a verbose log of the upgrade to see exactly what's going on.

There's a lot of guesswork here because you say you want an upgrade but your MSI isn't built to actually do an upgrade, and you don't say if you have WiX util User in there to create a user account. You also don't say if you have incremented the ProductVersion of your new MSI either, so again that results in more guesswork as to what Burn might do. The verbose log would show whether it's a custom action issue or something else, what kind of update (if any) that you're doing.

Solution 4

I had the same issue uninstalling another program. This Fix-It solved the problem for me: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/mats/program_install_and_uninstall/en

Update note: it's no longer necessary to emulate an older user-agent on Windows 10 to download the fix-it file.

Update 2: As Chris Johnson mentioned, Microsoft has discontinued Easy Fix, so the link above does not work anymore.

Solution 5

You probably need to change the 'packagecode' (note: NOT 'ProductCode') for the MSI. You'll find it in the Summary Information Stream.

Just encountered this myself when trying to create an Upgrade MSI package. Using Orca to change the 'packagecode' fixed it.

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