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Steph54
Contributor
Contributor

Can anyone explain a VMWare Player install script error?

I have attempted to install VMWare Player 3.1.4 and get part way through the script when it produces an error message and then hangs.  The message is as follows:

     An error has occurred in the script on this page
     Line:    870
     Char:    7
     Error:    Expected ']'
     Code:    0
     URL:    file:///C:/Users/Mom's%20Machine/AppData/Local/Temp/vmware_1314628947/index.html?lang=1033&locale=1033

     Do you want to continue running scripts on this page?

Does anyone have a clue what might be causing the installer script to choke at line 870 character 7?

I tried installing version 3.1.3 and get the identical error so I suspect that it is something related to my machine or system rather than a script problem.  (But with few clues to proceed I am stymied.)

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a_p_
Leadership
Leadership

Welcome to the Community,

how far does the installation run?

If it stops with a blank installation window you may want to take a look at Re: Blank Screen on installation which describes an issues with a buggy zone entry.

André

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Steph54
Contributor
Contributor

Thanks for the suggestion ab0out the Internet registry.  It does not appear, however, that the registry has a folder starting with "L" so that doesn't appear to be my problem.

To answer the question about how far it gets, the answer is only to the point where it asks for the directory where the application should be installed.  It fails immediately after that point.

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Steph54
Contributor
Contributor

I had a suggestion from a colleague that turned out to resolve the problem.  The user name under which the process was running had an apostrophe in it.  That apparently casued the script to abort.

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DavidWoodward
Enthusiast
Enthusiast

I had a similar error with the VMware Player 4.0 installation:  Expected ')' on line 871.

It appears that the index.htm file used to drive the installation interface does not handle paths with an apostrophe in them.  To be specific, javascript is throwing an exception while trying to execute an "eval" statement on a string that has not been properly escaped to remove said apostrophe characters.  I'm sure there's a regular expression somehere in there that needs to be tweaked in order to fix this, but I've got enough of my own code to debug so I'll let someone else figure that out (who's getting paid for it). Smiley Happy

So, here's a note/workaround  to anyone who may come accross this thread in the future:

1) Make sure the installation file (.exe) is running from a folder without any apostrophe's in it.  Personally, I'd just go ahead and copy it into a very simple path like "C:\Install\VMware" just to make sure special characters aren't an issue.

2) Make sure the path the VMware setup is using for temporary files does not contain any special characters.  By default the installation will use your user's temporary folder which can be found by typing "%TEMP%" in the address bar of any explorer window.  However, you can force it to use a differen't path using the "/t" argument like this:

VMware-player-4.0.0-471780.exe /t "C:\Install\VMware\Temp"

I hope this saves someone a few headaches down the road.  I just spent half the day trying to figure this out and then found this thread AFTER I figured it out on my own.  Oh well.  At least I'm all up to date with the latest version now.

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