VorpX install error "Failed to expand shell folder constant \"userdocs\"

[LancerVI]

Just purchased VorpX, downloaded it and started the install. Can’t even install it. I receive an error message at the “Ready to Install” portion of the setup.

An error box pops up and says, “Internal Error: Failed to expand shell folder constant “userdocs””

AMD R9 3900x
Asus ROG X570 Crosshair VIII Hero (wifi)
Sound Blaster AE-9 Logitech Z906 5.1 speakers.
G.Skill Trident Z F4-3600C17-8GTZR 32GB (4×8)
MSI GTX 1080 TI Gaming X 11G
Samsung 970 EV0 plus 1TB nVME x2 RAID 0
Watercooled, custom loop.
Oculus Rift S
Windows 10 Pro 1903

[Ralf]

This error indicates that an internal Windows function fails that should never fail on a normally configured Windows.

Please check whether you maybe have some “security” feature in your AV software activated that blocks access to your ‘Documents’ folder by obfuscating it. Might be called ‘Protected Folders’ or similar depending on your AV software. If so either disable this feature or allow the installer to access your ‘Documents’ folder.

If that is not the issue, please check whether your Windows user’s ‘Documents’ folder is set up correctly, i.e. not set to an unavailable network drive or something similarly invalid.

[LancerVI]

Ah. I have it set to my NAS. I like my library folders setup to my NAS. Is there a work around?

EDIT: I’m going to try and change the permissions and see if that will allow me to continue.

EDIT: Didn’t work. Completely disabled my Norton and checked the permissions for the documents folder. Everything looks good, but still get the same error message.

[Ralf]

The installer is a common third party installer used by literally thousands of applications. If it fails to expand your ‘Documents’ folder location correctly, something has to be messed up. All I can recommend is trying to temporarily set the folder path to the default location for the installation. The only file currently installed there by vorpX is an optional background image for cinema mode.

Might be worth it to find a permanent solution though for the messed up environment variable expansion as this issue probably will affect other applications too. Also once installed vorpX accesses the ‘Documents’ folder sometimes to optimize game settings. I have no idea whether vorpX itself will suffer from the same problem as the installer, but if it also fails due to your broken setup, some of vorpX’s auto game configuration features would not work for you.

BTW: Might be unrelated, but get rid of Norton AV. One of those AV programs that may prevent vorpX from hooking games correctly. Windows built-in Defender is less invasive and at least as good these days.

[LancerVI]

I understand. All of my other applications use my documents folder with no problem, including games, productivity, etc. I must be missing something here. It’s the first time I’ve run into this issue.

Thanks for your help. I will try to set it to default location and see if that works.

Update: Changing to default documents folder worked. Thanks again.

[Sci]

There is definitely a problem with the installer, i have exactly the same issue as above, my Docs are all on a mapped network drive that i can open, browse and save to just like a normal folder yet i get the error above and if i try to browse to any folder/drive that is not local the installer says “The location is not available”

I’ve installed hundreds of programs and never had this issue before.

[Ralf]

The installer is one of the most commonly used installers out there (Inno setup). Having the documents folder on a network drive is rather unusual though, sounds as if the environment variable that normally points to it is not set correctly (or not in a way that allows Inno setup to properly resolve the path).

However, provided you can skip the error there isn‘t really anything you have to be concerned about. The only file that the installer puts in the documents folder is an optional background image for cinema mode. Not required for anything at all. You can add any number of background images later in the config app.

[Author]

Posts