I am trying to follow the procedure in the Wiley Publishing book Professional SharePoint 2007 Development Chapter 4 section on Solutions to use Makecab.exe to make a Sharepoint Solution.

Why is MakeCab.exe having trouble parsing the wsp.ddf file? How do I fix it?

I am getting the following errors in VSTS 2008:
Microsoft (R) Cabinet Maker - Version (32) 1.00.0601 (03/18/97)
Copyright (c) Microsoft Corp 1993-1997. All rights reserved.
Parsing directives
Parsing directives (wsp.ddf: 1 lines)
wsp.ddf(1): error : Could not find file: n++.OPTION
EXEC : error : MakeCAB aborted: 1 errors encountered

Error 1 Could not find file: n++.OPTION file: C:\!Projects\WileyFeature\WileyFeature\wsp.ddf Line: 1 Project: WileyFeature



The contents of the wsp.ddf file is:

.OPTION EXPLICIT
.Set CabinetNameTemplate=WileyFeature.wsp
.Set DiskDirectoryTemplate=c:\wsp
.Set CompressionType=MSZIP
.Set UniqueFiles=OFF
.Set Cabinet=on
;Files to place into the CAB Root
Manifest.xml
;Files to place into the CAB WileyFeature directory
.Set DestinationDir=WileyFeature
Feature.xml
Elements.xml

I had the same problem. The book says to edit the file in Visual Studio. I found that this is incorrect. I ended up using notepad and that resolved the problem. Looks like VS adds some characters MakeCab doesn't like.