Illegal characters in path when deploying a Metro Style App

If you are getting an error similar to the one below when deploying your Metro Style App in Visual Studio 11 Beta it’s not you.

 Error    1    Error : DEP0600 : The following unexpected error occurred during deployment: 
 Illegal characters in path.
    at System.IO.Path.CheckInvalidPathChars(String path, Boolean checkAdditional)
    at System.IO.Path.Combine(String path1, String path2)
    at Microsoft.VisualStudio.ImmersiveProjectServices.Shared.AppxLayoutManager.CheckPackageLayoutState(DeployPackageName deployPackageName, String location)
    at Microsoft.VisualStudio.ImmersiveProjectServices.Shared.LocalDeployJob.GetLayoutState(DeployPackageName deployName, Boolean hasFrameworkDependencies)
    at Microsoft.VisualStudio.ImmersiveProjectServices.Shared.RegisterAppxLayout.Start(Boolean forceNewLayout, Boolean forceRegistration, NetworkLoopbackState desiredNetworkLoopbackState, Boolean refreshLayoutOnly, String& packageMoniker, String& firstUserAppID, Exception& deployException)    MetroInclinometerSteeringWheel

 

This is a known issue when moving source files around to different folders without uninstalling the Metro Style App.  The good news is the fix is simple!

Uninstall the application via it’s Start Screen Live Tile and then re-deploy it in Visual Studio 11.

I have this happen to me frequently due to having different machines I present on and moving source code around between them.  I figured I would share the solution in case you come across the same issue.

Comments

• Anonymous
  May 11, 2012
  Thanks so much, that's what I need. By the way, I need to get system color. Do you know how to get it?