We are using InstallShield 2020 Professional SP3, on Windows 10 Pro.
We have an automated build server that automates Install Shield (via its command line interface, 'ISCmdBld.exe') to build an Installer for our Internal Product on demand. To accomplish this, it calls a PowerShell (.ps1) script that gathers all the pertinent information (such as the Product Key GUID, binaries, etc.), and passes parameters for the paths and Product Key into IsCmdBld.exe. For the past few years, this process has been working more or less flawlessly, up until recently when our Installer is giving us the following error almost immediately after its launched. Looking thru the MSI Log file, it appears this occurs after the "ResolveSource" action.
There are two things to note here: 1. Our installer, in no way has any business changing any password in the system. When I google error, "1324", it appears to be a message from Windows when a user attempts to change a password that doesn't meet the complexity requirements. 2. If I build this installer manually using the Install Shield GUI application, everything works as intended.
As it turns out, there was a Linefeed ("\n") after the GUID in our ProductKey.txt file. Our PowerShell Script reads the string data in from this file and passes it to ISCmdBuild.exe. If there are any extraneous characters after the GUID that is passed into the "-z ProductCode " parameter, it causes the Install to engage into some questionable behavior, much like errors in Pointer arithmetic do when developing in unmanaged languages like, C or C++. I know this is likely rare, but I wanted to ask and answer the question up here on Stackoverflow.com just in case anyone else encounters this issue. I have been working with Revenera (Flexera) software support and hopefully, this [now] known issue we experienced will be documented. This simple linefeed jammed me up for days.
Related
I have a client site running our Windows desktop software on a number of computers with 64 bit Office 365.
On most of their computers, our software is able to send email via Outlook.
However, two of their computers were upgraded to 365 last year (by their IT technician, not us), and both fail when they attempt to send email from our software.
Outlook works fine on its own, and so does our software - on both of these computers. But these two both can't send email from our software. (The other computers, which send email fine, are running exactly the same version of our software.)
When sending email, our software first checks for the existence of "Outlook.Application" or "Outlook.Application.*" keys in the Windows Registry to determine whether Outlook is installed. If not found, our program logic assumes that Outlook isn't installed, and attempts to use MAPI instead to send mail through another email client like Thunderbird (or through Outlook using MAPI). However, these computers both then crashed, because MAPI doesn't work on 64bit computers.
When I investigated these two problem computers, I found that they both had no "Outlook.Application" or "Outlook.Application.16" keys anywhere in their Windows Registry. I have never encountered this before. How and why would Office 365 install without creating these Registry entries? (I had just installed Office 365 on two computers here in my office, and they both had these keys and worked perfectly. And we have never encountered this before, at any of our other user sites.)
I discussed this with their IT technician. He did a complete uninstall of Office 365, and installed them from scratch, using the "on-line" install (that I had used on my computers - I sent him the URL to be sure). However, after this they were still unable to send email. When I investigated, I found that the Registry keys were still missing.
Their IT technician then asked me to export all the "Outlook.Application" and "Outlook.Application.16" keys in "Computer\HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT" and send them to him. He imported these on both those computers, but it did not fix the problem.
However, because the keys now existed, our software then attempted to send email directly through Outlook, using OLE. However it crashed on the line where it tried to create an Outlook Application Object:
loApp = CreateObject("Outlook.Application.16")
I built a special version with some extra test code in it. After failing to run the above line, it tried to run a line:
loApp = CreateObject("Outlook.Application")
This also failed - presumably because some Outlook application components have not been installed.
I did some fairly extensive Google searches for posts that might identify a solution, but found nothing that seemed to fit. A couple of posts suggested running an Office "Repair" from the installation tool.
I mentioned this to their technician, and he did this. Interestingly, when I then checked (using RegEdit), it had created a lot more "Outlook.Application" and "Outlook.Application.16" Registry keys. But our software still fails on both the "CreateObject" lines in that test version, and single "CreateObject" line in the normal version.
Both their technician and I are completely mystified (and now out of our depth in the Microsoft black arts of Office 365 installation and Windows).
Has anyone encountered this scenario before, and / or can suggest where we might go from here?
OK, the original post was getting a bit long, and I didn't want to clutter it with too much information. So here is some further info:
In answer to Eugene's questions:
Using RegEdit, I searched the entire Registry - for one of the
computers that didn't work, and one that did (plus my own here,
which also worked fine).
Their technician installed the latest 64 bit 365. If I understand
correctly, the initial install was done from an ISO file. When that
didn't work, he tried again using the "on line" install (which I had
successfully used here). He used the "on line" install again for the "repair". I don't have current build numbers, but could obtain these later in the week if relevant. But they should be up-to-date.
No we can't reproduce the problem ourselves in-house, and have never
seen it before at any other client site.
The site is running the same antivirus software on all computers (those
that work, and those that don't). So I suspect that this won't be
the cause.
Registry keys that match perfectly on those two computers are:
Computer\HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID\{0006F03A-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}
Computer\HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Outlook.Application
Computer\HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Outlook.Application.16
Computer\HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\WOW6432Node\CLSID\{0006F03A-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\CLSID\{0006F03A-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Outlook.Application
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Outlook.Application.16
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\WOW6432Node\CLSID\{0006F03A-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\ClickToRun\AppVMachineRegistryStore\Integration\Backup\Software\RegisteredApplications
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\ClickToRun\AppVMachineRegistryStore\Integration\Ownership\Software\Classes\Outlook.Application
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\ClickToRun\AppVMachineRegistryStore\Integration\Ownership\Software\Classes\Outlook.Application.16
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\ClickToRun\AppVMachineRegistryStore\Integration\Ownership\Software\RegisteredApplications
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\ClickToRun\REGISTRY\MACHINE\Software\Classes\CLSID\{0006F03A-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\ClickToRun\REGISTRY\MACHINE\Software\Classes\Outlook.Application
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\ClickToRun\REGISTRY\MACHINE\Software\Classes\Outlook.Application.16
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\ClickToRun\REGISTRY\MACHINE\Software\Classes\Wow6432Node\CLSID\{0006F03A-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}\InprocServer32
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\ClickToRun\REGISTRY\MACHINE\Software\RegisteredApplications
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\RegisteredApplications
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Classes\CLSID\{0006F03A-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\RegisteredApplications
Something that may be significant:
The Windows Registry on the computer that does not work has four extra keys (that are not in the computer that does work):
Computer\HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\PackagedCom\ProgIdIndex\Outlook.Application
Computer\HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\PackagedCom\ProgIdIndex\Outlook.Application\Microsoft.Office.Desktop.Outlook_16051.12325.20298.0_x86__8wekyb3d8bbwe
Computer\HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\PackagedCom\ProgIdIndex\Outlook.Application.16
Computer\HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\PackagedCom\ProgIdIndex\Outlook.Application.16\Microsoft.Office.Desktop.Outlook_16051.12325.20298.0_x86__8wekyb3d8bbwe
That computer (which doesn't work) also has a folder C:\ProgramData\Packages\Microsoft.Office.Desktop.Outlook_8wekyb3d8bbwe\ with 3 subfolders in it (with system generated names):
The first (created in 2019) has a subfolder "\SystemAppData" which is
empty.
The other two (both with same date/time in early 2020) are completely
empty (i.e. have no SystemAppData subfolder)
I wonder whether these keys may somehow be causing mischief. Early next week the technician and I plan to back up these keys, and then delete them.
Does anyone know what these keys are about?
(I found a blog that may be relevant: https://blogs.windows.com/windowsdeveloper/2017/04/13/com-server-ole-document-support-desktop-bridge/ But then again, it may not be.)
Keep in mind that older version of Windows Store Outlook ran in a sandbox and was not externally accessible. Uninstall it and reinstall again from the store - you will get a regular C2R version.
Eureka!!! Deleting those extra legacy Registry keys did the trick.
Computer\HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\PackagedCom\ProgIdIndex\Outlook.Application
Computer\HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\PackagedCom\ProgIdIndex\Outlook.Application\Microsoft.Office.Desktop.Outlook_16051.12325.20298.0_x86__8wekyb3d8bbwe
Computer\HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\PackagedCom\ProgIdIndex\Outlook.Application.16
Computer\HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\PackagedCom\ProgIdIndex\Outlook.Application.16\Microsoft.Office.Desktop.Outlook_16051.12325.20298.0_x86__8wekyb3d8bbwe
Our software immediately was able to create Outlook Application objects, and send email via Outlook.
It seems that these extra keys dated back to an earlier attempted install by the client (before their current technician became involved). There were about 20 or so other 'Outlook*' keys in that part of the Registry with '8wekyb3d8bbwe' in their name. I subsequently deleted these too - on the the assumption that they were all legacy garbage. (As a rule, it is pretty dangerous to delete things you don't understand - but so far, so good. Although I am too chicken to delete a host of others in that location for Access, Excel, PowerPoint, Word with with '8wekyb3d8bbwe' in their name too.)
I had the same problem; it came from a brand-new computer!
What worked for me was the early binding. Select: Tools > Reference > Microsoft Outlook 16 object library.
Dim objOL As Outlook.Application
Set objOL = New Outlook.Application
Set objOL = Nothing
At the end, setting objOL to Nothing is crucial, otherwise the instance stays open, and it causes problems with Outlook.
Reference.
I made a minor change to a legacy Visual C++ / MFC app built with VS 2008. I changed some UI resources in the .rc file and compiled without any problems, then deployed it on my client's system. However, the program which was previously doing fine now fails to run on exactly one of their servers. It works fine on my laptop and on their other servers, many of whom are basically identical to the one having the trouble.
The weird thing however is that there is absolutely no error message whatsoever. No message box, no errorlevel set (when run on command prompt), no Dr. Watson entry, no nothing.
It's an MFC app that does not really comprise anything very special. It does link in some external libraries – e.g., some old version of the Xerces C++ XML parser. But this is probably not too relevant, right?
The program has a class derived from CWinApp, and I tried to add some logging in its constructor. Based on this, it looks like not even this constructor is reached.
The server in question is running Windows Server 2003 Standard Edition Service Pack 2, and we are trying to run the program in a Remote Desktop session. (Because of the client's environment, I cannot easily test in a console session right now.)
I reverted my changes from version control, which did not help – but I do not know if I had built myself the previously installed version (which ran just fine even on this server) or if it had been built by someone else.
Have also tried to reinstall the Visual C++ runtime libraries and of course reboot Windows, but neither helped. Now I'm really running out of ideas... Any clues on what I could try or check?
Probably some error occurs but is surpressed e.g. empty catch() statement or similar.
You could try and install Debugging tools for Windows WinDbg to see if you could get more info when trying to run it. Since the download is rather small 25Mb maybe it is possible to install it on your client's PC.
But first check the eventview log for your app, maybe there is something in there that can shed some light.
I use the following command to run a exe file which is in the network drive through a vbscript:
wsh.Run """\\lonmsc01\apps$\EWebEditPro\Version 4\ewebeditproclient4.exe"""
This installation pops up with dialog boxes to choose the setup type As Resintall or Remove and proceeds on by clicking on Next to finish the set up.
Is there any way I could disable the UI and install it silently?
The whole idea of using vbscript to silently install software is a bad idea. User interaction or at least user notification should be involved in all software installations unless you're a network admin using an Enterprise management tool. This struck me as sneaky, so I did a search for the exe you mentioned.
A quick google search indicates this may be malware you're trying to install... At least according to the Prevx site, it's listed as potential spyware. You're not asking us for help in silently installing malware, are you?
At any rate, even if this is legit (which it probably is) it's a bad idea. In today's world, silent installs should be completely disallowed.
http://spywarefiles.prevx.com/spywarefilesweek.asp?mk=43998135
Depends on what setup utility was used. Mose installers have a silent or quiet operator. Try calling the setup with the parameter /?, it might tell which parameters you can pass him. Or you just try different switches, like /silent, /quiet etc.
This is the error that is thrown by our automated build suite on Windows 2008, while running ICEs (after migrating from WiX 2.0 to WiX 3.0):
LGHT0217: Error executing ICE action 'ICE01'. The most common cause of this kind of ICE failure is an incorrectly registered scripting engine. See http://wix.sourceforge.net/faq.html#Error217 for details and how to solve this problem. The following string format was not expected by the external UI message logger: "The Windows Installer Service could not be accessed. This can occur if the Windows Installer is not correctly installed. Contact your support personnel for assistance.". in light.exe(0, 0)
The FAQ is now deleted, however, the text from it said:
In WiX v3, Light automatically runs validation-- Windows Installer Internal Consistency Evaluators (ICEs) --after every successful build. Validation is a great way to catch common authoring errors that can lead to service problems, which is why it’s now run by default. Unfortunately, there’s a common issue that occurs on Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 that can cause ICEs to fail. For details on the cause and how to fix it, see Heath Stewart's Blog and Aaron Stebner's WebLog.
Additionally, these are the errors that show up in the event log:
MSIInstaller: Failed to connect to server. Error: 0x80070005
Product: [ProductName] -- Error 1719. The Windows Installer Service could not be accessed. This can occur if the Windows Installer is not correctly installed. Contact your support personnel for assistance.
Intuitively:
VBScript and JScript were registered under admin.
Integration service has permissions for the desktop interaction and all the files
Builds succeed, when executed manually on the same machine by another user or even user logged in as integration account (via RDP)
I'm out of ideas so far.
How do I solve this problem while keeping ICE validation?
End of the story:
After fiddling with the permissions of the integration account, DCOM, service activation, etc. without any luck, I finally simply disabled ICE validation in the continuous integration build, while still keeping it in the local build.
To disable ICE validation you can set SuppressValidation to true in the .wixproj file:
<PropertyGroup>
<SuppressValidation>true</SuppressValidation>
</PropertyGroup>
Or pass the -sval command line option to light.exe.
Adding the TFS build controller account to local admin group and restarting the windows service did the job for me.
I found the root cause. I tried everything I found, including custom validator extension similar to one posted in Re: [WiX-users] light.exe failed randomly when running ICEs..
It's not a concurrency issue as suggested in various threads. It's caused by a too large Process Environment Block (PEB).
It turns out Windows Installer can’t handle a process environment block larger than 32 kB. In my environment, due to number of variables set by the build system and their size (for example, PATH variable containing multiple duplicated values), PEB was about 34 kB.
Interestingly, per Environment Variables, Windows XP and 2003 had a hard limit of PEB set to 32 kilobytes. That would probably cause an easy-to-catch build break in an earlier phase of the build. Newer Windows' doesn’t have such limit, but I guess that Windows Installer developers limited their internal environment buffers to 32 kB and fail gracefully when the value is exceeded.
The problem can be easily reproduced:
Create a .bat file which sets environment variables which size exceeds 32 kB. For example, it can be 32 lines of set Variable<number>=<text longer than 1024 characters>
Launch cmd.exe
Execute the batch file you created
From the same cmd.exe window:
Try building the MSI package using WiX with ICE validation on OR
Run smoke.exe to validate your package OR
Simply run msiexec /i Package.msi
All the above commands will end up reporting Error 1719 - Windows Installer could not be accessed.
So, the solution is - review your build scripts and reduce number and size of environment variables so they all fit into 32 kB. You can easily verify the results by running:
set > environment.txt
The goal is to get file environment.txt smaller than ~30 kB.
The correct description (without a solution, except if adding the CruiseControl account into local administrators group can pass as a solution) of the problem:
Quote from Wix 3.5 & Cruise Control gives errorLGHT0217:
ICE validation needs an interactive account or administrator privileges to be
happy. See for example WiX Projects vs. TFS 2010 Team Build (2009-11-14) or Re: [WiX-users] Help with building patch (2009-11-20).
imagi is totally right! I could not believe this is the true answer. Supressing validation and making TFS user Administrator are not good solutions. Plus I could not find NT\Authority to add it to Administrators group and was totally stuck in this.
I got the same error on Windows Server 2012 Datacenter as Build Agent.
To solve the problem :
List item
Go to Environment Variables on the build agent machine
Create two System Variables
"PF86" which is equal to "C:\Program Files (x86)"
"PF" which is equal to "C:\Program Files"
They are so short because I want to save characters.I made them without the final backslash because TEMP, TMP and others were made so and I decided to stick to MS standard for these variables.
Edit PATH variable by substituting every "C:\Program Files (x86)" with %PF86% and every "C:\Program Files" with %PF%
Close and build and enjoy!
It worked for me. :)
UPDATE
I found a better solution : Rapid Environment Editor will do all this and even more for you. Automatically.
I faced the same problem and did not like to suppress ICE validation. My setup: I used my own computer as a build agent on Visual Studio Online (VSO). My solution was to change the account used to run the service on my machine. Instead of using Network Service or Local Service I simply made the service log on with my own account which had all the necessary rights.
From http://wix.sourceforge.net/faq.html#Error217:
In WiX v3, Light automatically runs validation--
Windows Installer Internal Consistency Evaluators (ICEs)
--after every successful build. Validation is a
great way to catch common authoring errors that can lead to service problems,
which is why it’s now run by default. Unfortunately, there’s a common issue
that occurs on Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 that can cause ICEs to
fail. For details on the cause and how to fix it, see
Heath Stewart's Blog
and
Aaron Stebner's WebLog.
I was getting same ICE error, but the problem turned to be corrupted Windows Installer Service.
This solution worked for me:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/315353
Log on to your computer as an administrator.
Click Start, and then click Run.
In the Open box, type cmd, and then click OK.
At the command prompt, type msiexec.exe /unregister, and then press ENTER.
Type msiexec /regserver, and then press ENTER.
Restart Windows
Also, verify that the SYSTEM account has full control access permissions to the
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT hive in the Windows registry. In some cases, you may also have to add Administrator accounts.
I have some suggestions.
Try updating the Microsoft Installer version on the build server
Make sure you use the newest release of WiX 3.0, since it's 3.0 release stable now.
If all else fails, try running the build service under a specific build user who you can fiddle with permissions for...
I got this error from my Azure build agent running on-premises.
My solution was to upgrade its user account from "Network Service" to "Local system account".
Go to your build machine and restart the Windows Installer service
None of the above suggestions worked for me, for me the anti-virus (mcafee) came into the picture and looks like it updated the vbscript.dll registry entry to a wrong DLL location. These are the things to keep in mind:
Some of the WiX ICE validations are implemented using VBSCRIPT.
So while compiling the MSI, the build server would need access to the c:\windows\system32\vbscript.dll.
Chances are that somehow the user that runs your build lost access to this DLL.
As mentioned in the above answers do look for the admin access/registry access and make sure your user has it.
Here are the steps that I took to fix the issue:
Open cmd (run as admin) on the build agent machine.
Run RegEdit
Select the root, then click ctrl + f and Search for the following registry entry : {B54F3741-5B07-11cf-A4B0-00AA004A55E8}
Look for the InprocServer32\Default Key
On my build agent, the path was replaced with a mcafee DLL location. I updated the path back to c:\windows\system32\vbscript.dll
Editing the registry entry was not easy, as it was a protected registry entry. I used the below link to get access permissions changed before I could edit the property: Edit protected registry entry
Once I updated the path, everything started working as usual.
My solution is similar to Vladimir's one. My CI user was admin of the computer.
But the following steps were mandatory to allow my jenkins build to succeed:
log in as CI user using rdp
open a dos command prompt
execute: %windir%\system32\msiexec.exe /unregister
execute: %windir%\system32\msiexec.exe /regserver
then i got a successfull job
I have a VB6 app that formerly worked perfectly on a Vista machine as a scheduled task, but it will no longer open on the same machine. The app generates export files in a specified folder with no direct output on the screen. I get no errors, no missing references, just absolutely nothing.
The machine is running Vista Business 32-bit, UAC is disabled with a single administrator account, and automatic updates are turned off. The app resides in a non-protected folder, and the export files are put in a folder on the desktop. The client swears that the only change they made to that computer since I installed this app was installing Norton Antivirus, which has never caused problems before with our software.
In addition to the normal VB6 references, the app references Microsoft Scripting Runtime (scrrun.dll), and Microsoft DAO 3.6 (dao360.dll). Both of these files are present and registered on the target machine, along with all the other VB6 dependencies. I added MsgBox statements at the beginning of Sub Main() just to see if anything is being executed, and its not. Disabling Norton yielded no results, nor did reinstalling VB6 runtime to rule out any corrupted libraries. Not once did I get any messages, error or otherwise from my app.
I've never had an issue like this before and I'm completely stumped. Is there anything else that could be causing this?
Edit - The app does not run even when I run it manually, so the part about it being a scheduled task is irrelevant to my problem, sorry for including it.
The user has full administrator credentials, no compatibility mode was needed on the initial test which at the time, was done on this very machine I am having the problem on. For grins I tried compatibility mode for XP and 2000, still nothing.
Try to inspect - if you can access them - the Event Viewer messages. Maybe you will find some tell-tell signs in there...
You could try running the program in Windbg, a free standalone debugger from Microsoft. Compile your VB6 EXE into native code with symbols (create PDB files) and you will be able to debug your application in Windbg.
I would guess one of two things will happen.
Windbg will fail to load the EXE. Presumably with an error message that will identify your problem.
Windbg will load the EXE, and you can single-step through to see what happens.
Here's a 2006 blog post by a Microsoft guy about using Windbg with VB6, and 2004 blog post by another Microsoft VB guy with a brief introduction to Windbg.
Has the user changed their password? That will cause the scheduled task to fail until they re-enter the password on the task.
Have you tried running the process directly, instead of as a scheduled task? I'm far from an expert, but it may be that any errors being generated are not showing up because the program is running as a task.