TDM Portal installer error during upgrade

Products

• CA Test Data Manager (Data Finder / Grid Tools)

Issue/Introduction

Trying to upgrade TDM Portal from 4.7 to 4.8 and have got an issue which is blocking in installing the tool.



Getting below error in the installation log that got generated:
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Action start 16:21:10: BackupAppConf.
Error 1720. There is a problem with this Windows Installer package. A script required for this install to complete could not be run. Contact your support personnel or package vendor.  Custom action BackupAppConf script error -2146828212, Microsoft VBScript runtime error: Path not found Line 11, Column 2,  
MSI (s) (50:8C) [16:23:24:951]: Product: CA Test Data Manager Portal -- Error 1720. There is a problem with this Windows Installer package. A script required for this install to complete could not be run. Contact your support personnel or package vendor.  Custom action BackupAppConf script error -2146828212, Microsoft VBScript runtime error: Path not found Line 11, Column 2, 
======================================================================

Cause

The error message in installation log file says "..Path not found.." which could mean several reasons (path doesn't exists, path contains invalid characters, path is too long...). Using PROCMON we could see the files/folders that were touched and found that the backup directories stored inside existing Portal installation folder caused file paths to be longer than Windows limit (248 characters) and that's why the installer failed to copy files during installation.

Environment

Release : 4.x
Component : CA Test Data Manager

Resolution

Removing those backed up folders from TDM Portal installation folder and rerunning the installer, resolved the issue.