Yes, I know vb6 ancient and all that. It's still an interesting question. and the issue might not even be with vb6....
Background: We have a server running a vb6 application for our users who access this via Citrix. This installed application accesses its DLLs (also written in vb6) from a "shared folders" location.
What I want to do is have the previous version of this same app on the same server, accessing it's own set of (previous versions) DLLs. I am half way successful. the renamed app in another directory runs. But it crashes immediately upon using any feature that draws from the DLL's code.
Apparently the registered DLLs of the current version are being called upon. I dont want that. I want the DLLs found in the same directory as the renamed older app to be called upon.
Can that happen in a windows server? is this an installer's settings issue? Have you ever had this situation before? were you successful?
thanks in advance.
Harry
Post Script:
The bosses decided that experimenting with the DLLs and system settings was a waste of my time and not worth the risk. So they're throwing money at it and another server will come online for the sole reason of providing the previous version to the citrix users who want it. Thank you to all of you who pitched in with great tips and leads to other posts. (yeah I'm sort of disappointed too. Kind of wanted to know what the solution was to this.....)
The OS should be looking for the dll’s in the following places and order
The directories listed in the App Path registry key (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionApp
Paths) if any
The directory where the executable module for the current process is located
The current directory
The Windows system directory
The Windows directory
The directories listed in the PATH environment variable
Given that you are using a shared folder for your dll’s, I would suppose that the app is setting the current directory to your shared folder OR is using the PATH environmental variable to specify where to look. I don’t think it is using the app path registry key path because that is version specific and you said you are using a different version.
I would suggest your try setting the path via HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionApp Paths
I am creating a visual studio setup project using vs2010. I want my application to be installed in c:\manufacturer\ProductName. I used [HOMEDRIVE] as the defaultLocation of "ApplicationFolder" which will points to c:\ at the installation time. However, when i put [HOMEDRIVE][Manufacturer]\[ProductName] as the defaultLocation, it raises an error at the installation time saying "Could not access network location Manufacturer\ProductName". I appreciate any kind of help or suggestion.
You can use this default path:
[WindowsVolume][Manufacturer][ProductName]
WindowsVolume property is automatically resolved to the Windows partition (usually C:). Also, all predefined folder property values are ended with a backslash (). So you don't need to add one after WindowsVolume.
I am trying to run a .NET application which uses System.Data.OracleClient on a Win7 x64 workstation. The workstation has a 32bit Oracle client installed, which leads to the following error message:
Attempt to load Oracle client libraries threw BadImageFormatException. This problem will occur when running in 64 bit mode with the 32 bit Oracle client components installed.
So this is my long journey of tries and failures:
I tried to install the Oracle client win64_11gR2_client. But during the setup process it crashes without any comment.
I followed an answer from a different SO thread, tried and extracted the instantclient-basic-windows.x64-11.2.0.2.0, and put the folder containing the binaries in the windows PATH variable. I still get the same error message though (even after rebooting).
I followed the "alternative way" from this answer and copied the files oci.dll, orannzsbb11.dll, and oraociei11.dll into the bin/ folder of my web site project. Still the same error message.
I tried and copied all files from the instant client into that directory and tried again, without success.
I installed ODAC112021Xcopy_x64.zip and put the installation folder and the bin folder in the windows PATH variable. No success.
I put my hope on this answer and reviewed the DllPath in the registry (which is actually supposed to relate to ODP.NET as opposed to System.Data.OracleClient) and saw that DllPath points to the correct x64 installation of ODAC, so, if my application wasn't using System.Data.OracleClient, it should work,b but since it does use that, it still failed.
I googled and stackoverflew but didn't find anything else that the posts I already referred to.
I carefully crafted this SO question in the hope of getting any insightful advice from an enlightened SO user.
After getting the first answer from b_levitt, I tried and added the following lines to the Global.asax at Application_Start:
Environment.SetEnvironmentVariable("ORACLE_HOME", #"C:\OracleProducts\Odac-11.2.0.2.1-x64");
Environment.SetEnvironmentVariable("PATH", #"C:\OracleProducts\Odac-11.2.0.2.1-x64;C:\OracleProducts\Odac-11.2.0.2.1-x64\bin");
C:\OracleProducts\Odac-11.2.0.2.1-x64 is where I installed the ODAC 64 bit xcopy version. No success either.
On a related note, I even tried to force my .NET app into 32bit mode without success, but that's a different thing. I need a forward-looking solution, which means 64bit.
Your #5 should have worked but you also need to set the ORACLE_HOME environment variable. I've done this many times including recently with the very xcopy install that you are using. Please check out my experience with the xcopy install and let me know what kind of additional errors that you get.
In my case I was setting it up for asp.net, but winforms is even easier. You can open a cmd window, use the "set" command to set both the PATH and the ORACLE_HOME environment variables and then run your app from that same cmd window. Once you get the bugs worked out, you can use the Environment.SetEnvironmentVariable to set these within your code.
For the record, I do avoid installing the oracle client on client machines by handling all of the business logic via web services. That way I only need the oracle components on the web server.
I had the same problem you have. I found most of my answers through Oracle forums and here at stackoverflow. I can't post links for reference but I can give you some things to try out.
Also include OraOps11w.dll in your bin directory along with the other Oracle dll files.
Go to the project properties|Reference Paths, add C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v2.0.50727 or C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319 to the Reference paths depending on which framework version the project is using.
**Fuzzy part that I don't remember well: Remove the System.Data.OracleClient current reference and add the new reference from C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v2.0.50727 or C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319 to the Reference paths depending on which framework version the project is using.
See if the exception goes away.
FYI, Microsoft is dropping Oracle data provider (in ADO.NET) support in the near future. It currently works through .NET 4, but it is a good idea to start testing the native Oracle drivers.
I have been trying to publish my service to windows azure. The service consists of a single webRole, however I have added remote login functionality published it and built it a few times, and now all the sudden it will not build. The reason it gives is that
Details below:
"Error 56 The specified path, file name, or both are too long. The fully qualified file name must be less than 260 characters, and the directory name must be less than 248 characters. C:\Program Files (x86)\MSBuild\Microsoft\Cloud Service\1.0\Visual Studio 10.0\Microsoft.CloudService.targets 202 5 FileSystemCreator"
I have gone on all the forums, I have used CSPack command line for packaging the service which is fine but I'm having a really hard time configuring the certificate for remote desktop connect and I would like to take advantage of this feature as I am creating some websites in the onStart event and I would like to peek into IIS. Some microsoft employees do agree that this is a bug and the have promised a fix this issue, refer to post . I am using VS2010 and I do not know how to fix this bug.
Can anyone please help, or point me to a place where I can get any help.
I ran into the same problem with a new solution.
Note that, unlike Eugenio Pace's response suggests, the error occurs only when deploying to Azure (and not when running the project in the Azure Compute Emulator).
Try adding the following line to the first property group of your Windows Azure Visual Studio Project file (*.ccproj):
<ServiceOutputDirectory>C:\Azure\</ServiceOutputDirectory>
The trailing slash (for whatever path you select) appears to be required. This folder will be deleted each time you create a package if it exists.
This setting seems to redirect the working folder for the package to a shorter base path, preventing the path too long error.
Credit goes to: http://govada.blogspot.com/2011/12/windows-azure-package-build-error.html
Perhaps the local folder used to store temporary development fabric is too long. See Windows Azure - Resolving "The Path is too long after being fully qualified" Error Message.
I was having this problem as well when deploying a Node.js project to Azure.
To fix it, I had to change my "TEMP" and "TMP" user environment variables to something shorter than their default values.
In my case, they were pointing by default to %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\Temp, changing them to C:\Temp solved it.
Make sure you restart Windows after.
The better solution may be to create a symbolic link to your project folder. This doesn't require moving files or changing system variables. Open up the command prompt as an administrator and run this:
mklink /D C:\Dev C:\Users\danzo\Source\Workspaces
Obviously you can change "C:\Dev" to whatever you want it to be and you'll need to change the longer path above to the root directory of your soltions/projects folder.
Same problem happened to me when I try Packaging an Umbraco project for Azure (https://github.com/WindowsAzure-Accelerators/wa-accelerator-umbraco/wiki/Deployment), I found the solution is to: Copy and rename the long-name path and folder to "C:\someshortname".
(solution was suggested by this: link)
I tried all the above 2 approaches:
-change TEMP and TMP enviromental variables
-<ServiceOutputDirectory> path
and didn't work.
In my case, I had to move the whole project to a shorter path C:\ and worked.
I'm using W7 and VS12.
When you run a cloud service on the development fabric, the development fabric uses a temporary folder to store a number of files including local storage locations, cached binaries, configuration, diagnostics information and cached compiled web site content.
By default this location is: C:\Users\\AppData\Local\dftmp
Credit goes to Jim Nakashima of Microsoft :
https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/jnak/2010/01/14/windows-azure-resolving-the-path-is-too-long-after-being-fully-qualified-error-message/
In order to change the temporary folder, a user environment variable has to be created :
It is named _CSRUN_STATE_DIRECTORY
Give it a value of short named directory like :
c:\AzureTemp
Don't forget to restart Visual Studio in order to have the environmennt variables to be read again
It fixed many compilations problem !
Using Visual Studio 2010, when I build + run my application in short intervals I often get the following error. If I just wait a minute or two and try again it works fine. Unlocker claims no handle is locking the executable file. How can I discover what's locking it? If it's Visual Studio itself, what should I do to make it stop? or alternatively to release the file?
1>------ Build started: Project: MyProj, Configuration: Release Win32 ------
...
1>InitializeBuildStatus:
1> Creating "Release\MyProj.unsuccessfulbuild" because "AlwaysCreate" was specified.
1>ClCompile:
1> All outputs are up-to-date.
1> SomeFile1.cpp
1>ResourceCompile:
1> All outputs are up-to-date.
1>LINK : fatal error LNK1104: cannot open file 'D:\...\MyProj.exe'
1>
1>Build FAILED.
1>
1>Time Elapsed 00:00:00.94
========== Build: 0 succeeded, 1 failed, 0 up-to-date, 0 skipped ==========
Had this issue after a reinstall today. Make sure the Application Experience service is started and not set to disabled. If its set to manual, I believe VS will start it.
I'm aware this is quite old but I just had the same problem with Visual Studio 2010 all patched up so others may still run into this.
Adding my project path to "Exluded Items" in my AVG anti-virus settings appears to have fixed the problem for me.
Try disabling any anti-virus/resident shield and see if it fixes the problem. If so, add your project path to excluded directories in your AV config.
You probably had a stray build process that was locking the executable, and it (the stray process) didn't get cleaned up. In that case, shut down visual studio, open up process explorer, and nuke every process you can find that is related to visual studio.
Then open up visual studio again and try rebuilding your project.
the file can be locked because it is being run now. Try killing the process with a task manager.
Like Jonathan said, yes, renaming can help to work around this problem. But ,e.g. I was forced to rename target executable many times, it's some tedious and not good.
The problem lies there that when you run your project and later get an error that you can't build your project - it's so because this executable (your project) is still runnning (you can check it via task manager.)
If you just rename target build, some time later you will get the same error with new name too and if you open a task manager, you will see that you rubbish system with your not finished projects.
Visual studio for making a new build need to remove previous executable and create new instead of old, it can't do it while executable is still runinng. So, if you want to make a new build, process of old executable has to be closed! (it's strange that visual studio doesn't close it by itself and yes, it looks like some buggy behaviour).
It's some tedious to do it manually, so you may just a bat file and just click it when you have such problem:
taskkill /f /im name_of_target_executable.exe
it works for me at least.
Like a guess - I don't close my program properly in C++, so may be it's normal for visual studio to hold it running.
ADDITION:
There is a great chance to be so , because of not finished application. Check whether you called PostQuitMessage in the end, in order to give know Windows that you are done.
You might have not closed the the output. Close the output, clean and rebuild the file. You might be able to run the file now.
I've concluded this is some kind of Visual Studio bug. Perhaps C Johnson is right - perhaps the build process keeps the file locked.
I do have a workaround which works - each time this happens - I change the Target Name of the executable under the Project's properties (right click the project, then Properties\Configuration Properties\General\Target Name).
In this fashion VS creates a new executable and the problem is worked around. Every few times I do this I return to the original name, thus cycling through ~3 names.
If someone will find the reason for this and a solution, please do answer and I may move the answer to yours, as mine is a workaround.
I had the same problem, however using Codeblocks. Because of this problem i quited programming because everytime i just wanted to throw my computer out of the window.
I want to thank user963228 whos answer is really a solution to that. You have to put Application Experience on Manual startup(you can do it by searching services in windows 7 start menu, and then find Application Experience and click properties).
This problem happens when people want to tweak theyr windows 7 machine, and they decide to disable some pointless services, so they google some tweaking guide and most of those guides say that Application Experience is safe to disable.
I think this problem should be linked to windows 7 problem not VS problem and it should be more visible - it took me long time to find this solution.
Thanks again!
Just to add another solution to the list, what I've found is that Visual Studio (2012 in my case) occasionally locks files under different processes.
So, on a crash, devenv.exe might still be running and holding onto the file(s). Alternatively (as I just discovered), vstestrunner or vstestdiscovery might be holding onto the file as well.
Kill all those processes and it might fix up the issue.
I have just run into the same issue with VS2013, creating device drivers in C++ , and none of the above seemed to fix the issue. However, I have just discovered that in my case the issue appears to have been VMWare-related.
I was running a VMWare workstation client with a shared folder defined on the VM on my entire C: drive. When I disabled the shared folders on the VM Settings, VS2013 was able to happily build my .exe files.
My new process is:
1) Disable the shared folder on the vm (VM Settings | Options | Shared Folders - and uncheck the checkbox)
2) Run the build on the host PC
3) RE-enable the shared folder (and proceed from there)
Hopefully this might help someone else.
(BTW, the errors you receive are that the .exe (or other files) are locked or require Administrator permission, but that is a red herring - It seems to me that the VMWare share is causing those files to appear as locked.)
Usually, this means that your program is locked and might not be killed through task manager or process explorer. I met a similar case that my program had an exception during running and triggered the windows error reporting which locked the program. For the case that windows error reporting locks the program, you can go to control panel->System and Security->Action Center->Problem Reporting Settings to set "Never check for solutions". Hope it helps.
For me it was happening, when I was trying to build in debug mode, but it was working fine in release mode. I changed the build configuration in the visual studio from x86 to x64 and it worked fine for me, as I was running on 64 bit system.
I just had this issue in VS22 - I think I closed the debugger right when it was compiling. All I had to do was restart my computer.
The error comes (at least sometimes) from paths that are too long. In my project simply reducing the output file path does the job:
"Properties/Configuration Properties/General/Intermediate Directory"
Seems that I have hit the 250 character path limitation.
Working with Bjarne Stroustrup Programming Principles and Practice Using C++ "FLTK" example i got the same error but after like 1 hour i got an idea, i tracked one of the libs already seen in Project Properties -> Linker -> Input -> Additional Dependencies, in my case i tracked the kernel32.lib to see where was located and saw there were many kernel32.lib's in different folders. So i started copy the FLTK libs in those folders and the last one i tried worked. Visual Studio 2013 Express found the fltkd.lib and the code worked.
In my case the correct route was C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\8.1\Lib\winv6.3\um\x86
I don't know how to set that route inside Visual Studio.
Not sure if that Windows kits folder was created when i installed Microsoft Windows SDK for Windows 7 and .NET Framework 4 (ISO) http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=8442
Hope that helps you people.
I just had thesame problem. With me the exe was still running but I could not end it with the Task Manager. Just by restarting VS, it worked for me.
Mine is that if you set MASM listing file option some extra selection, it will give you this error.
Just use
Enable Assembler Generated Code Listing Yes/Sg
Assembled Code Listing $(ProjectName).lst
it is fine.
But any extra you have issue.