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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-06-06T13:42:47+00:00

I’m unable to build a Setup Project in VS2010, for a Windows Service project.

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I’m unable to build a Setup Project in VS2010, for a Windows Service project. It fails with this error:

Could not find required file ‘setup.bin’ in ‘C:\MyProject\Engine’.

My environment is Windows 7 Professional x64 with Visual Studio 2010 Version 10.0.40219.1 SP1Rel

I’ve downloaded Microsoft Windows SDK for Windows 7 and .NET Framework 4, repaired, then rebooted, then installed the unchecked components except Visual C++ compiler, then installed KB2519277.

These are the existing registry entries:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\GenericBootstrapper\3.5
    Path = c:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v6.0A\Bootstrapper\

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\GenericBootstrapper\4.0
    Path = c:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0A\Bootstrapper\

These are the existing files:

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v6.0A\Bootstrapper\Engine\setup.bin

C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v7.0A\Bootstrapper\Engine\setup.bin

An existing workaround is to copy the Engine directory to the project directory, however this has to be done every time you make a new project.

How can this be fixed properly?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    With Process Monitor I found that, right before trying to access the path, a DLL is used to retrieve this path. The following may be borderline legal, but I’d like to share my findings anyway.

    The DLL is located at C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\Microsoft.Build.Tasks.v4.0.dll and the class being used is Microsoft.Build.Tasks.Deployment.Bootstrapper.BootstrapperBuilder. Using your favourite disassembly tool, you can find that ultimately three attempts are made at retrieving the path.

    1. HKLM\Software\Microsoft\GenericBootstrapper\11.0\Path
    2. HKLM\Software\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\GenericBootstrapper\11.0\Path
    3. Environment.CurrentDirectory

    I’m unsure why it says 11.0, as far as I can remember VS 2012 has not been installed on this machine before.

    So there’s a bug in the SDK installer or there’s a bug in the DLL. Either way, creating the 11.0 registry key and adding the value resolves this issue. Note: Visual Studio must be restarted, because after attempting to retrieve the path, it is cached.

    Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\GenericBootstrapper\11.0]
"Path"="C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Microsoft SDKs\\Windows\\v7.0A\\Bootstrapper\\"

    Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\GenericBootstrapper\11.0]
"Path"="C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Microsoft SDKs\\Windows\\v7.0A\\Bootstrapper\\"
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