DISM.exe Return Codes?

Question

I have a program that calls the dism.exe program and it runs a few commands in the background. Right now, I only check for a return code of 0 or anything else in order to show a process failed or succeeded. What could i cross examine the return code with in order to get an accurate return error. Which returns are the DISM referenced to?

Answer 1

The link provided in the comment DISMAPI Error Messages provides a very few error code, but in my experience, these are not the most common error codes returned by DISM.exe.

In my scenarios, I mostly use dism.exe /Online ... and here's what I found so far:

• ERROR_SUCCESS_REBOOT_REQUIRED ~ 3010 (0xBC2) when /Add-Package requires a reboot.
• ERROR_BAD_FORMAT ~ 11 (0xB) when you hand /Add-Package a package that is not applicable to this operating system (e.g. an x86 package for a x64 Windows)
• ERROR_PATH_NOT_FOUND ~ 3 when the file you hand to /PackagePath doesn't exist
• ERROR_ELEVATION_REQUIRED ~ 740 (0x2E4) when you're not running as admin.

Additional Links:

• https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/desktop/Debug/system-error-codes
• https://github.com/jeffkl/ManagedDism/blob/master/dismapi.h