Summary

Symptoms

When building an InstallShield project, the following error may occur:

"Warning -4354: The build was unable to extract COM information from the file [1] in component [2]. Please ensure that the file is self-registering and verify that the self-registration process does not fail."

[1] is a placeholder that contains the specific filename that the build is attempting to extract COM information from, while [2] is the component name that contains this file.

Cause

This warning message occurs when the key file specified in the message cannot be registered, and the component containing that file has the property "COM Extract at Build" set to "Yes". A file can fail to register for any of the following reasons:

1. The file is not a self-registering file.

2. The file is self-registering, but its dependent files are not present.

3. The file is self-registering, the dependent files are present, but the dependent files are not registered properly.

Resolution

1. If the file is not a self-registering file, follow these steps to mark it as such:
   1. Select the Components view.

   2. Highlight the component in the center column that was specified in the warning message.

   3. In the right panel, set the "COM Extract at Build" property to a value of "No".

   4. Expand the component in the tree to show the Files view beneath and select it.

   5. In the right panel, right-click on the file specified in the warning message and choose Properties.

   6. Make sure the Self Register check box is clear.

   7. Rebuild the project.

   The above steps ensure this file is not marked as self-registering and not marked to extract COM information at build time. The setup copies the file to the target machine at install time and attempts to register it.

2. If the file is self-registering, but its dependent files are not present on the build machine, follow these steps outlined in the following help article: Identifying Application Dependencies

   Once the dependencies are identified, make sure they are present on your build machine and registered properly.

   Once all dependent files are present and registered properly, rebuild the project to resolve this build warning.

3. If all dependent files are present on the build machine, make sure they are all registered properly.

   Once all dependent files are registered properly, rebuild the project to resolve this build warning.

Additional Information

Additional information on COM registration can be found in the Help Library topic Extracting COM Information from a COM Server.

This error is briefly documented in the Help Library topic Build Errors and Warnings.