WiX 3: Error 1406: Could not write value {ValueName} to key {KeyName} - wix

Question

I recently converted an old WiX 2 project to WiX 3. In the previous WiX project there was a component that contained a number of shortcuts, as follows.
<Component Id="ShortcutsComponent" Guid="$(var.ShortcutsComponentGuid)">
<Shortcut Id="Shortcut1" Name="Shortcut1Name" LongName="Shortcut1LongName"
Directory="ShortcutsDir" Target="{Target}" />
<Shortcut Id="Shortcut2" Name="Shortcut2Name" LongName="Shortcut2LongName"
Directory="ShortcutsDir" Target="{Target}" />
</Component>
When I converted the project to WiX 3 this caused the following error.
error LGHT0204 : ICE43: Component ShortcutsComponent has non-advertised shortcuts. It's KeyPath registry key should fall under HKCU.
To resolve the error I made modified the ShortcutsComponent by adding a RegistryValue element as follows.
From our Variables.wxi file.
<?define JAWSVersion = "$(env.Major).0"?>
<?define FSRegistryKey = "SOFTWARE\Freedom Scientific"?>
<?define JAWSRegistryKey = "$(var.FSRegistryKey)\JAWS"?>
And in the WXS file, which includes Variables.wxi, I added the following line to ShortcutsComponent.
<RegistryValue
Root="HKCU" Key="$(var.JAWSRegistryKey)\$(var.JAWSVersion)\Components"
Name="ShortcutsComponent" Action="write" Type="integer" Value="1"
KeyPath="yes" />
I made similar changes to a number of components.
Now I am getting errors when installing the software, but only on some computers. The error is as follows.
Error 1406: Could not write value {ValueName} to key {KeyName}.
System error. Verify that you have sufficient access to that key,
or contact your support personnel.
I considered replacing the above RegistryValue line with something like the following but I do not expect the results to be any different.
<RegistryKey Root="HKCU" Key="$(var.FSRegistryKey)" Action="create">
<RegistryKey Key="JAWS" Action="create">
<RegistryKey Key="$(var.JAWSVersion)" Action="create">
<RegistryKey Key="Components" Action="create">
<RegistryValue
Name="ShortcutsComponent" Action="write"
Type="integer" Value="1" KeyPath="yes" />
</RegistryKey>
</RegistryKey>
</RegistryKey>
</RegistryKey>
Does anyone have any suggestions on how to solve this problem?
NOTE: I was asked to give the precise values for {ValueName} and {KeyName}. Here are the relevant lines from the log file.
MSI (s) (1C:8C) [14:36:29:183]: Executing op: RegOpenKey(Root=-2147483647,Key=SOFTWARE\Freedom Scientific\JAWS\17.0\Components,,BinaryType=1,,)
MSI (s) (1C:8C) [14:36:29:183]: Executing op: RegAddValue(Name=RemoveExploreDir,Value=#1,)
WriteRegistryValues: Key: \SOFTWARE\Freedom Scientific\JAWS\17.0\Components, Name: RemoveExploreDir, Value: #1
MSI (s) (1C:8C) [14:36:29:183]: Note: 1: 1401 2: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Freedom Scientific\JAWS\17.0\Components 3: 1021
Error 1406. Could not write value RemoveExploreDir to key \SOFTWARE\Freedom Scientific\JAWS\17.0\Components. System error . Verify that you have sufficient access to that key, or contact your support personnel.
MSI (s) (1C:8C) [14:40:09:789]: Product: Freedom Scientific JAWS 17.0 -- Error 1406. Could not write value RemoveExploreDir to key \SOFTWARE\Freedom Scientific\JAWS\17.0\Components. System error . Verify that you have sufficient access to that key, or contact your support personnel.
I hope this helps.

Answer 1

This is more of a report of a discovery than an answer. As it turns out the problem was not in the WiX code but in a custom action contained in a DLL that is used by the installer. This custom action created the registry key "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Freedom Scientific\RJSetup" with the REG_OPTION_VOLATILE option. What this means is that if the "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Freedom Scientific" did not already exist, it too was created with the REG_OPTION_VOLATILE option. When the WiX installer attempted to write to any key under "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Freedom Scientific" this caused the Error 1406. We are fixing the custom action so that it first creates the "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Freedom Scientific" registry key as a standard key and then creates the "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Freedom Scientific\RJSetup" registry key with the REG_OPTION_VOLATILE option. That hopefully will fix the problem.
The moral of the story is, if you find an odd error in a WiX installer that you cannot figure out in code that appears to be consistent with thousands of resources found online consider the possibility that you are shooting yourself in the foot in one of your custom actions.