Problem

Error 2738 shown during installation of Visual COBOL.

Full text shown in the Visual COBOL Installer is :

The installer has encountered an unexpected error installing this package. This may indicate a problem with this package. The error code is 2738.

Resolution:

This is a Windows installer error, caused due to the Windows VBscript component not being enabled on the machine correctly. The Visual COBOL Product installer requires VBScript to be enabled.

To resolve, ensure that the vbscript.dll is registered into the Windows Global Assembly Cache (GAC) of the Windows Operating system, using command regsvr32.

This Microsoft dll file is usually located in path %windir%\system32\). 

See also the Microsoft MSDN webpage: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa372835(v=vs.85).aspx

This explains that error code 2738 means: 

Could not access VBScript run time for custom action [2].  This usually means the vbscript.sll is not present or installed correctly, or being blocked by a Firewall/anti-virus type application.