Node.js installation (windows installer) terminates prematurely on windows 10 64-bit

Question

After going through a windows 10 re-installation due to a windows update crashing my laptop, I was left with re-installing many applications. One of them being node.js. When I t

Answer 1

Maybe try to search the log for "value 3" as explained by Rob Mensching in his blog. Doing so will find the locations in the log file that describe errors of significance.

Many people use dropbox, gdisk or similar to post logs. Some put it on github (just a sample log for OP, leaving in for reference). Check that last link, is that the same problem you see perhaps? (search for "value 3" as explained above - without the quotes of course). Looks like there is an error creating an Internet shortcut. Perhaps that is a Windows 10 problem? I will take a quick look.

I am betting Bob Arnson knows what this problem is outright. He will probably give us the real answer, see below for my workaround.

The correct thing to do overall, would probably be to communicate the problem back to the Node.js guys so they can fix the problem once and for all.

UPDATE: Maybe see if this answer helps you: node.js installer failing with 'CAQuietExec Failed' and 1603 error code on Windows 7. Essentially un-check Event tracing(ETW) in the setup's feature dialog - or you can try to launch the MSI from an elevated command prompt.

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UPDATE: There seem to be two Internet shortcuts configured for this MSI in the WixInternetShortcut table. I would just create a transform to remove these two shortcuts and try a reinstall. If you feel bold and fearless and like to break the law, you can delete the two rows from the table and just save directly to the MSI itself. This is never the right thing to do if you are a deployment specialists. The original MSI is sacred, but if this is for your own system and you need to get something done, that would work. Then you just install the MSI direct afterwards. Otherwise you can install the transform after creating it with a simple command line:

msiexec.exe /i node-v8.11.2-x64.msi TRANSFORMS="C:\MyTransform"

You can create the transform using Orca, InstEd or SuperOrca or any commercial tool that supports creating transforms.

In case you don't know, transforms are little database fragments that are applied to the original MSI (which is also a database under the hood). After the transform is applied the in-memory version of the MSI is the MSI + the changes from the transform.