The app I work on is written mainly in VB6.
Some users report that when they start up my app a different MSI installer will automatically run and try to repair its own installation. Often this is for AutoCAD but sometimes other programs also.
Usually this occurs every time they start the app.
What is a procedure that we can use to diagnose why this occurs? Since it is a third-party's installer which is running we don't have any visibility into what it is doing.
AutoDesk does have some info published on this:
Unexpected installer launches
Windows Installer displayed unexpectedly
but these do not directly provide enough information. Ideally I want to be able to completely prevent this from occurring to my end users, rather than just telling them how to avoid it or clean it up.
Your installer is acting on a directory, file or registry key that Windows Installer knows is part of the AutoCad installation.
First, I would turn on global Windows Installer logging. This means that any Windows Installer activity - including AutoCad's installer - is written to an external log file (in %temp%).
How to Enable Windows Installer Logging
Next, run your installer, and let the AutoCad installer run.
Now go to %temp% and you should find files MSIXXXX.LOG - one for your installer, one for AutoCad. Open these and you can work your way through them and identify which file or registry key the AutoCad MSI find is missing or changed.
You may find WiLogUtl.exe helpful for this:
Wilogutl.exe
With any luck you will identify that the directory, file or registry key triggering autorepair is also in your installer. If you're really in luck you can identify it as an item you should not be installing anyway - perhaps you are referencing a system component that would be present anyway, something protected by Windows File Protection.
If not, you will have to look at something like RegFree COM to move files out of shared directories into your private directory and reduce registry conflicts. Also, if you are using (consuming) the Visual C++ Runtime MSMs to make your MSI, consider using the Microsoft EXE installer instead or (best of all) placing the DLLs directly in your program folder, since I've found that the MSMs can cause just this sort of problem.
With regards to Peter Cooper Jr's comment on VB6 causing self-repair. Please check out the heat.exe documentation for Wix. You will see that there is a special switch the tool supports to suppress extracting certain registry values that are owned by the VB6 runtime itself (and hence shouldn't be messed with or updated by any other MSI): http://wixtoolset.org/documentation/manual/v3/overview/heat.html
Go down the list to the switch -svb6 and read the description to the right. (Reproduced here:)
When registering a COM component created in VB6 it adds registry
entries that are part of the VB6 runtime component:
CLSID{D5DE8D20-5BB8-11D1-A1E3-00A0C90F2731}
Typelib{EA544A21-C82D-11D1-A3E4-00A0C90AEA82}
Typelib{000204EF-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}
[as well as] Any Interfaces that reference these two type libraries
Does your installer write to these keys? If so try to exclude them - this is good to do even if it isn't the culprit in this particular case.
Other than that there is a lengthy description of what can cause Windows Installer self-repair here: How can I determine what causes repeated Windows Installer self-repair?. It is a long article because there are so many different ways self-repair can occur. The common denominator is that different installers on your system are fighting over a shared setting that they keep updating with their own values on each application launch in an endless loop.
Related
I have a WiX script that creates an installer that lays down an application in Microsoft Windows 7 and 10 machines silently. There are no options so there is no need for a GUI.
Some of the clients are complaining that when they launch the installed application (long after it was successfully installed), Windows pop-ups up the MSI installer message "Please wait while Windows configures [APPLICATION_NAME]". They say this happens every time and it runs for about as long as it originally took to install.
I used to get this a whole lot more and thought that it was because some of the installed files had been modified. I concluded that when the MSI ran the second and subsequent times it was overwriting the modified files with the original ones from the installer.
Since these files were intended to be modified after install, I added 'NeverOverwrite="yes"' to their Component definition as in:
<Component Id="..." NeverOverwrite="yes" Directory="..." Guid="...">
This seemed to solve the problem until now. Any ideas what I should be looking at or investigating further?
Short Answer: This is an MSI self-repair problem.
Work out what component triggers the self-repair. Details below.
Correct the situation by making changes to the setup eliminating the conflict situation.
Self-Repair: This is the classic "unexpected self-repair" issue often seen with MSI packages when certain conditions are met. I have written about this issue so many times that I will recycle some answers. I think the most accessible answers might be these two (please read at least the first link):
Visual Studio 2015 msi build initiates another installation
Why does the MSI installer reconfigure if I delete a file?
Debugging Using Event Log: To determine what MSI component triggered the self-repair you need to debug by inspecting the Event Log. This is described by Stefan Kruger's FAQ entry: Windows Installer launches unexpectedly, for no obvious reason. Alternatively read Flexera's Article: Understanding Windows Installer (MSI) Self-Repair (features nice screen shots).
Components & Products: When you have an offending component GUID, you can determine what product it belongs to by running this VBScript: Look Up Products for Component. It could be another product - if not just open your product's MSI file and find the component's key path.
Full Details: And the very in-depth answers with full explanations. Try the bolded third link for practical issues:
Self-repair - explained
Self-repair - finding real-world solutions
Self-repair - how to avoid it in your own package
Other Resources:
What is the use of Repair option in a msi installer and what does it really do (internally)?
This question may seem really dumb, my apologies for having very minimal programming experience. We just need to make an inventory system exe given to us run and "work" on some computers.
The exe file itself is an inventory system made using Visual Basic 6. It runs fine on computers that have visual basic 6 installed.
However, on computers without VB6, we encounter crashes. The exe's themselves run fine but as soon as we perform something (logging in/clicking buttons/etc.), we get runtime errors 339. On one machine it says, "Component 'MSCOMCT2.OCX' or one of its dependencies not correctly registered: a file is missing or invalid. on another machine, we have a similar error but points to MSFLXGRD.OCX
I figured these problems may be caused by missing system files/dependencies and we need to first install those. How do I make an installer wizard (similar to those Windows app installers that installs system files alongside the actual app) for installing these missing dependencies?
You could do a lot worse than the free Inno Setup. I've used it for many VB6 projects and it's never failed me. There's a learning curve but it's a very flexible package.
I used to use (and contributed to) the WiX toolkit for this purpose.
This will build a standard .msi installer for you. Start with the heat program which will inspect your software and generate much of the WiX project for you, be sure to use the -svb6 option.
You will need to source the appropriate merge modules for VB6 as well, which will provide the components you are missing.
We have an ancient win32 product that some customers still want to run in Windows 10, but in some cases several of its components (win32 executables) produce said message when run, while installing and after installing :
"Do you want to allow this app/program to make changes in your PC".
Is there any documentation of what Windows checks to emit the message ?
The message you're seeing is the UAC prompt, and it appears because Windows thinks the program wants admin privileges.
Ancient programs don't have manifests. Modern versions of Windows guess at whether really old programs require admin privileges. If the name of the program sounds like it would be an installer (e.g., setupfoo.exe), it will assume the program needs admin.
But many really old programs, even if they're not installers, often want admin privileges because they often try to do things like save files in the program's installation directory or change machine-wide registry values. If Windows detects a program attempting this and failing because it doesn't have admin privs, it might adjust the program's compatibility options so that next time it runs as an administrator. To check this, right-click on the executable file, choose Properties, and select the Compatibility tab. There you'll find a checkbox named "Run this program as an administrator."
To check if your program has a manifest, open the .EXE in Visual Studio (with just the regular open file command), or other resource viewer/editor tool, and look in the resources to see if it has an RT_MANIFEST resource.
If there is no manifest and the program is well-behaved, you can add one that sets the <requestedExecutionLevel> node to asInvoker.
If it has a manifest, look at the <requestedExecutionLevel> node in the XML. If it's there and it says requiresAdministrator, then there's probably nothing you can do. If it already says asInvoker, then something else is going wrong.
To provide or replace the manifest you have two options. You can create an external manifest file and place it in the same folder with the executable (for some versions of Windows, you also have to tell Windows to rely on the external manifest by changing a registry value).
Alternatively, you can use the manifest tool (mt.exe, which comes with Visual Studio) to embed an appropriate manifest in the executable itself (make a backup of the executable first!). In either case, you want to set the <requestedExecutionLevel> node to asInvoker to avoid the UAC prompt.
Note that, if the program really does need admin privileges, then providing a manifest that says it doesn't will cause the program to fail certain operations. The program might crash, or it might appear to work but silently fail to do something important (like saving your work).
Also note that manifests control other important things that you may have to get right, like marking whether the application is DPI-aware or what Windows versions it supports. So, if you try to add a manifest just to add asInvoker, you might also have to add some other important values. MSDN has lots of documentation on manifests and the manifest tool.
it starts up windows installer with random applications on my machine . . after i click cancel a few times, it loads vb6 fine.
any ideas why this is happening?
To stop this behavior:
Start VB6
Open the Add-Ins dialog
Uncheck the "Visual Component Manager" Add-In
Source:
After VS2010, SP1, VB6 launches VS2010 installer
This is what a Windows Installer repair looks like. It means that something is broken in one of the installed products on your system. Ideally it's a one-off repair so you might be better off letting it runs its course and do the repair, except of course if it asks for a install CD that you don't have.
The Windows event log (Application) will have MsiInstaller entries saying what product and component has the problem.
It's possible a previous installation has not completed correctly.
Use the utility at the following link to remove any rogue installations files:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290301 (broken link Aug.2017, leaving URL for "historical purposes").
As PhilDW has pointed out this is a Windows Installer Self-Repair issue, and can often be resolved by allowing the self-repair to complete once. At other times the problem persists and it should be fixed by other means. Even when the self-repair completes and the problem goes away, it can still resurface once you launch the conflicting application. Windows Installer is not easy to deal with.
In your particular case you might be able to get away with a "workaround" rather than a fix. By locating the main VB6 EXE file on disk (in its main installation directory) and manually creating a shortcut to it on your desktop, you might be able to successfully launch VB6 via this new shortcut without the self-repair kicking in. It might be worth a try.
This shortcut trick will not remove the underlying problem, but might help to "bypass it". Just for the record: the reason this might work is that the new, manually created shortcut is not "advertised" and will not trigger a key-path check of the installed product when launched. This is Windows Installer's way to verify that a product is correctly installed. Note that even if the workaround works, self-repair might still result during application use because of faulty COM data being detected (which is very likely the cause of the whole problem you are seeing, but give the manually created shortcut a try).
There is a rather comprehensive "article" on self-repair here: How can I determine what causes repeated Windows Installer self-repair? which might help to track down the cause of the self-repair kicking off in the first place, but fixing it can be a rather complicated process (so try the workaround first). It is a long article because there are so many different ways self-repair can occur. The common denominator is that different installers on your system are fighting over a shared setting that they keep updating with their own values on each application launch in an endless loop. The last application to launch will overwrite the registry or file system with its own setting.
This worked for me, for VS2010 RC:
"Please wait while windows configures Microsoft Visual studio 2010 Ultimate."
THe work around that fixes the issue for me was to run the following via the admin cmd prompt.
Md "%ProgramFiles(x86)%\Microsoft Visual Studio 10.0\common7\IDE\FromGAC"
from http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-SG/vsprereleaseannouncements/thread/572a0f8a-16b0-4e1d-b581-16be36a9b564
This was also happned to me.
Whenever i tried to open vb6, it started windows installer to configure "Autocad".
Autocad had not broken. and it was working fine.
I tried removing and reinstalling Windows Installer, But it did not solved the issue.
Then i installed Microsoft's "Windows Installer Clean Up Utility 2" from given link.
Using this utility i removed the autocad from "Windows Installers" Database.
After that VB6 never started installer again.
Keep in mind 'removing any entry from installer's database may be risky, but i had no choice. So do it on your own risk.
Download "Windows Installer Clean Up Utility 2" (this is a deprecated, unsupported and unsafe tool to use - Aug.2017. I will leave the link in for "historical purposes", don't use it).
As most of you probably noticed, when uninstalling an MSI package Windows will ask for the original .msi file. Why is that?
I can only see disadvantages to that:
not resilient to network changes.
not resilient to local disk changes.
unexpected by users.
typically requires users to leave their desk and start a crusade to get the correct CD.
kind of proves installations are not self-contained.
promotes the use of unsafe tools such as msizap.
which in turn promotes the "next time I'll just use a zip file" mentality.
Could someone shed some light on this?
Fix Broken Uninstall: You can try the newest FixIt Uninstall tool from Microsoft if you have problems uninstalling an MSI. And one more link: Uninstalling an MSI file from the command line without using msiexec (a plethora of different ways to uninstall an MSI).
UPDATE:
This new support tool (this tool is now also deprecated) can be tried on recent Windows versions if you have defunct MSI packages needing uninstall (rather than the outdated, deprecated, unsupported msizap.exe).
Some have suggested to use the tool linked to here by saschabeaumont: Uninstall without an MSI file. If you try it and it works, please be sure to let us know. Feedback in that answer indicates that it works (I don't have any stuck setups to test with as of now).
Why are you asked for the original installation media?:
The original MSI is not needed for uninstall unless the MSI itself is badly designed - or the cached MSI is missing (see details below).
All installed MSI files are cached in %SystemRoot%\Installer\*.* using a random hex name.
The cached MSI file is used for any maintenance, repair and uninstall operations - and it is sufficient for uninstall in the vast majority of cases.
In some cases this cached file can be missing, and then uninstall is not possible at all in some cases (some theories as to why this can happen - MSI design errors, anti-virus quarantining, system restore, tinkering, developer system in erroneous state from development work, etc...). See more info below - and links to force uninstall or unregistration of the product.
The original source is only needed if files need to be copied to disk (for a maintenance install), or the MSI does an explicit request to resolve the original source via the standard action ResolveSource or via a custom action (which shouldn't be done in a properly authored package - I think the MS Office package contained this ResolveSource error back in the day, causing everyone to go looking for their installation CDs/DVDs).
In previous editions of Windows this cached MSI was stripped of all cabs, and hence contained the installer structure only, and no files.
Starting with Windows 7 (MSI version 5) the MSI files are now cached full size to avoid breaking the file signature which affects the UAC prompt on setup launch (a known Vista problem). This may cause a tremendous increase in disk space consumption (several gigabytes for some systems). Check this article and especially the discussion at the bottom for more intel.
To prevent caching a huge MSI file, you can run an admin-install of the package before installing. This is how a company with proper deployment in a managed network would do things, and it will strip out the cab files and make a network install point with a small MSI file and files besides it. Note that this may yield a UAC prompt is some cases since the extracted MSI file is no longer signed - this must be tested with your SOE / desktop configuration.
Read my answer in this thread for the full description of admin installs: What is the purpose of administrative installation initiated using msiexec /a? or this similar but perhaps more accessible answer: admin install and its uses
In some rare cases the cached MSI (with the random name) can be erroneously missing, and uninstall will then ask for the original MSI in order to complete the uninstall. This does not happen often. It used to be the case that one could use MsiZap.exe to clean out such an install, but this tool is outdated, deprecated and unsupported. Don't use it - there are too many incompatibilities with newer Windows versions and you create new problems. Perhaps try this support tool instead (also deprecated). The only option I can suggest now is this answer from saschabeaumont. If you try this tool, please let us know if it works for you. If you want to figure out what could have caused the cached MSI to be missing, try to read section 12 here: Uninstalling an MSI file from the command line without using msiexec (in short potential causes range from interference with system restore, anti virus and cleanup scripts, to erronous manual tweaking, low disk space, power outages, developer box debugging errors, badly designed MSI files with duplicate package codes, failed patches, etc... Many theories, few certainties I am afraid).
As a last resort you can try system restore (unless it has been disabled entirely or partly) to go back to a previous installation state and see if this solves your uninstall problem (you can find video demos of this on youtube or a similar site).
Be aware that system restore might affect Windows Update that must then be re-applied - as well as many other system settings. I have seen new, unsolvable installation problems resulting from a system restore, but normally it works OK. Obviously don't use the feature for fun, it's a last resort and is best used for rollback of new drivers or setups that have just been installed and are found to cause immediate problems and such issues. The longer you go back the more rework you will create for yourself. A lot of self-evident stuff, but I guess it needs to be mentioned.
Since I mentioned system restore I suppose I should mention the Last Known Good Configuration feature. This feature has nothing to do with uninstall or system restore, but is the last boot configuration that worked or resulted in a running system. It can be used to get your system running again if it bluescreens or halts during booting. This often happens after driver installs. This will do nothing to fix your failing uninstall though (or I would be very surprised).
Related answer:
Uninstall without an MSI file
In addition to this answer, perhaps this article on various ways of uninstalling MSI packages is of interest. It is a rather popular article with a high number of views:
Uninstalling an MSI file from the command line without using msiexec.
There are a few reasons for keeping the original msi:
The uninstaller uses it to know what files and registry keys were installed and make sure they are all cleaned up.
The msi may contain special uninstall actions that need to be performed.
It allows you do to a 'repair' operation from the Add/Remove Programs menu, regardless of whether or not you saved the install file yourself.
The normal way of things is for Windows to keep the file cached for you, so you don't have to think about it. See your %WINDIR%\Installer\ folder. The only reason it would ask your for the original msi is if something is wrong with the saved file. This addresses most of your concerns, though it does raise a new one (disk-space).