A quick note about an issue I recently encountered. I started seeing random application installation failures in the deployment task sequence with entries in BDD.Log like:
################ ZTIApplications 18/09/2009 1:00:35 PM 0 (0x0000)
Dependent entry: {24db38a6-bb6d-4c05-acad-25682702ccb7} ZTIApplications 18/09/2009 1:00:35 PM 0 (0x0000)
################ ZTIApplications 18/09/2009 1:00:35 PM 0 (0x0000)
Using a local or mapped drive, no connection is required. ZTIApplications 18/09/2009 1:00:35 PM 0 (0x0000)
Change directory: Z:\Applications\Adobe Reader 9.1.3 ZTIApplications 18/09/2009 1:00:35 PM 0 (0x0000)
WARNING - unable to set working directory: (-2147024893) ZTIApplications 18/09/2009 1:00:35 PM 0 (0x0000)
Run Command: \\server.domain.com\DeploymentShare$\Tools\X64\bddrun.exe Adobe_Reader_9.cmd ZTIApplications 18/09/2009 1:00:36 PM 0 (0x0000)
ZTI installing application ZTIApplications 18/09/2009 1:00:36 PM 0 (0x0000)
About to run command: \\server.domain.com\DeploymentShare$\Tools\X64\bddrun.exe Adobe_Reader_9.cmd ZTIApplications 18/09/2009 1:00:36 PM 0 (0x0000)
Return code from command = 2 ZTIApplications 18/09/2009 1:00:36 PM 0 (0x0000)
Application Adobe Reader 9.1.3 returned an unexpected return code: 2 ZTIApplications 18/09/2009 1:00:36 PM 0 (0x0000)
But this only happened for about half of the applications. During the task sequence I opened a Command Prompt (good old F8) and noticed that Z: was already mapped (as the log said), but not to the root of the deployment share. It was mapped to the logging share. Of course the applications folder wasn’t under the logging share.
I had recently enabled logging (SLShare), and dynamic logging (SLShareDynamicLogging) to try to track the various pilot deploys that were going on. Disabling SLShareDynamicLogging resolved the issue.
Why only some applications? It was the applications that were using a .BAT or .CMD file to install. Those files require an environment with a current working directory and so need to be run from a mapped drive. The other applications either ran a .VBS script or the installation executable directly. They were able to run using the just the UNC path.
End result is that if you want or need to use SLShareDynamicLogging you’ll need to make sure none of your applications are using .BAT or .CMD based installations.
