I recently installed Windows 7 in my dev machine, previously in Windows XP I was able to install the Visual Studio Extensions for SharePoint (VSeWSS) in it with a little hack I read in this post: http://blogs.msdn.com/jannemattila/archive/2007/08/16/how-to-install-windows-sharepoint-services-3-0-tools-to-xp-or-vista.aspx, the hack is simply to add the following registry key to the registry:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Shared Tools\Web Server Extensions\12.0]
“Sharepoint”=”Installed”
After I did that the extensions installed without any problem, but then when i tried to do the same in my Windows 7 64bits, I got the following error:
” Visual Studio 2008 extensions for Windows SharePoint Services version 1.3
Setup Wizard ended prematurely”
Digging deeper into the problem I went to my temp folder “C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Local\Temp” and I found the file VSeWSSv13_AMD64_Build-42900000.log, there was the following error detail:
…
Action 10:10:05: InstallDirDlg. Dialog created
MSI (c) (AC:1C) [10:10:06:672]: Doing action: getAppPoolsCustomAction
Action 10:10:06: getAppPoolsCustomAction.
Action start 10:10:06: getAppPoolsCustomAction.
MSI (c) (AC:1C) [10:10:06:673]: Note: 1: 2235 2: 3: ExtendedType 4: SELECT `Action`,`Type`,`Source`,`Target`, NULL, `ExtendedType` FROM `CustomAction` WHERE `Action` = ‘getAppPoolsCustomAction’
MSI (c) (AC:8C) [10:10:06:826]: Invoking remote custom action. DLL: C:\Users\JSESCO~1.PAR\AppData\Local\Temp\MSI698D.tmp, Entrypoint: GetAppPools
MSI (c) (AC:E4) [10:10:06:829]: Cloaking enabled.
MSI (c) (AC:E4) [10:10:06:829]: Attempting to enable all disabled privileges before calling Install on Server
MSI (c) (AC:E4) [10:10:06:830]: Connected to service for CA interface.
Action ended 10:10:12: getAppPoolsCustomAction. Return value 3.
DEBUG: Error 2896: Executing action getAppPoolsCustomAction failed.
The installer has encountered an unexpected error installing this package. This may indicate a problem with this package. The error code is 2896. The arguments are: getAppPoolsCustomAction, ,
Action ended 10:10:12: WelcomeDlg. Return value 3.
MSI (c) (AC:00) [10:10:12:055]: Doing action: FatalError
Action 10:10:12: FatalError.
Action start 10:10:12: FatalError.
…
Searching in google I found some posts saying the problem was with the UAC when executing the installer without admin privileges, but then I tried with admin privileges and was still getting the same problem, and I found that the version 1.3 takes care of that.
After trying some other things I enabled the II6 metabase compatibility in Control Panel -> Programs and Features -> Turn Windows features on or off

After I installed this windows feature the VSeWSS installer run without any problems.
I post this here for anyone having the same problem because I didn’t find this solution anywhere.
Filed under: sharepoint | 4 Comments
Tags: .net, error, IIS, MOSS, sharepoint, visual studio, windows7, WSS
