Winforms: Not a Valid Win32 Application

winforms visual-studio-2012 publish bootstrapper
ComfortablyNumb picture ComfortablyNumb · Oct 24, 2012 · Viewed 21.5k times · Source

I've created a simple Windows Form Application using VS2012 and I'm trying to install it to an XP machine.

Unfortunately I get the following error message:

setup.exe is not a valid Win32 application.

Admittedly, I did use the .net 4.5 framework which is an issue on XP machines. But I have now created a test application using .net 2.0 and get the same problem.

I'm developing the app on a win7 x64 machine and tried setting the platform to x86 in the configuration manager with out any joy.

Is this me or VS 2012? I've managed to install a test app using VS2010?

I had a similar issue when I tried to work on a Lightswitch application using VS2012 and abandoned it.

Any suggestions?

Cheers, Numb

Answer

Simon Mourier picture Simon Mourier · Oct 24, 2012

Here is a blog on the subject and a workaround:

Setup.exe is not a valid Win32 application

Clickonce bootstrapper engine (setup.exe) that was shipped with Visual Studio 2012 is NOT compatible with any OS below Windows Vista. So, the above error message is expected and by design. The reason for this behavior is because the bootstrapper is compiled using the VC compiler and the Dev11 VC compiler does not support Windows XP.

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