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).
Related
I created a Windows installer for a Client-Server program by using VS 2013 and InstallShield LE 2015.
I log in to a computer as Admin and run the installer. All works fine.
Then I modify the registry for Local_Machine for some keys to define the database location etc. for the program (this was done by the installation initially as well, but due to certain issues discussed in At each login the program tries to configure installation parameters in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE registry, I removed the registry modifying section from the installer).
I then run the program by double-clicking the shortcut placed by the installer on the desktop and test it. All works well.
Then I log off the computer.
Another user with admin rights logins and clicks on the shortcut, and the problem comes: the program starts to reinstall itself!
Then it fixes itself and runs fine.
But If the first user logins afterward, she experiences the same reinstall operation so does the first user afterward ad nauseam!
So, even though the installer does not create any registry items by itself, somehow, as soon as the program accesses the registry, or whatever it thinks broken, the Windows OS intervenes and tries to repair whatever needs fixing.
The InstallShield LE does not allow setting shortcuts to be "Advertised Shortcut", or
I delete the shortcut created by the installer and recreate it manually after the installation and yet experience the same problem. So the nature of the shortcut possibly is not the cause.
This problem only happens for multiple logins to the computer. If many people login by using the same credentials, it never happens.
So, what's wrong? I studied many StackOverflow answers to resolve this issue with no success. Any help would be highly appreciated.
Stein gives a good set of instructions on how to diagnose problems with MSI programs in this StackOverflow answer. When I followed his instructions, I was able to check which component of my MSI program has a problem. It turns out, the serial bus controller library, MScomm32.ocx could not register under Win 10 properly. Once, I implemented the solution in this link, the above problem resolved and I could log in as two different users without initiating a reinstall process whenever the program icon was double-clicked to run.
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.
I'm trying to use this Visual Studio extension for 2013, which recreates the built-in installer functionality from Visual Studio 2008/2010: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/visualstudio/archive/2014/04/17/visual-studio-installer-projects-extension.aspx?CommentPosted=true&PageIndex=2#comments
It works, allowing me to edit the project as before. It has the install and uninstall commands when right-clicking the install project, too. It installs fine.
When I try to uninstall, though, I get the following error and then the uninstall rolls back:
Could not open key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE32\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\
EAPSIMMethods\18\FastReauthContext. Verify that you have sufficient
access to that key, or contact your support personnel.
I am not doing anything with that registry key, and there don't seem to be any relevant results on google-- at least not in the normal top 5 pages. Does anyone know what causes this or how I can fix it?
While I am not able to uninstall, I am able to increment the version of the package and allow it to remove the previous install and install the new version (all at once) successfully.
I am using Windows 8.1 Pro 64 bit, the projects are compiled for <AnyCPU>, and the installer is configured for x86.
EDIT I am running Visual Studio as Admin. When uninstalling from the Control Panel, I am also clicking the 'allow' button in the UAC dialog window that pops up.
I know how to give myself access to a registry key (permissions). I want to know why this key is trying to be removed. I support this app on several machines and I don't want to have worry about remembering an uninstall hack in the future.
EDIT This only seems to be an issue for a 32x installer on a 64x OS or a Windows 8 issue. I was able to use the same 32x installer to successfully uninstall the app on a 32x Windows 7 machine.
This must be an environmental problem, that key doesn't have anything to do with installers. EAP-SIM is an authentication protocol for wireless networks. The FastReauthContext key almost surely was meant to avoid having to provide a username+password each time your machine reconnects to the network. Which makes the registry key content very sensitive of course, it can only be read by a service that runs with the System account.
So, something goofy going on with your networking setup. Verify that you can successfully reconnect to such a network. If you used a VPN before then make sure it is active again. Something like this. Update your question with anything that might be relevant to networking when you first installed the app.
I have had similar problem and what I found out this is caused by MSI attempting to delete whole "Software\Microsoft" section in the registry. Lucky you that it encounters this error and rolls everything back.
So the solution is the following:
Since you have installed your program whenever you try to uninstall it the system will run msi from cache that is usually located C:\Windows\Installer.
Find your package in the cache. Here is an article that may help you http://csi-windows.com/blog/all/27-csi-news-general/334-identifying-cached-msi-packages-in-cwindowsinstaller-without-opening-them
Open the package in Orca. You must do this as administrator.
Go to Registry table and find record with "Software\Microsoft" as a key. Most likely the Name column will contain either "-" or "*" value. This means that during uninstall MSI will try to delete whole "Software\Microsoft".
Either change the Name value to empty or "+" or try to change key to something like "Microsoft". The second option will cause that installer will not find the key to delete during uninstall, but it will skip this error and let you uninstall your program.
You installed an untested installer on your dev machine? Speaking from experience, don't do that! Snapshotted VM's are cheap and will save you from this sort of pain.
Visual Studio Deployment Projects (or VSI as it's now called ) is known for creating very poor quality installs. The combination of those two put you where you are today.
I would need to look at the full uninstall log and your MSI using ORCA to understand exactly what is going on. MSI Zap and a manual cleanup of resources is probably required at this point.
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.
In Visual Basic 6, when I attempt to access Project > References, it throws an error:
Error accessing system registry
I am:
Logged in as the local computer administrator
running Windows XP Professional and
I can execute regedt32.exe and access all the registry keys just fine.
VB6 was installed as the local administrator.
Any idea why this happens?
I'm running crystal reports 8.5 and it supposed to already have fixed that issue but apparently I still have the issue with 8.5 installed. I have also made the attempt of reinstalling crystal reports with no luck on the issue.
Depending on the Windows OS you have (I have Windows 7 Enterprise), you might want to try giving administrator rights to the REGTLIB.EXE (located in C:\Windws). Right click on the REGTLIB.EXE file. Select Properties from the pop-up menu. Then select the Compatiblity tab. On the Compatiblity tab, check/select the Run this program as Administrator checkbox. Click OK to save your changes. It might take take care of the problem for you. It worked for me. Good luck.
For me this worked:
goto C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\VB98
change the property of VB6.EXE by right click->Compatibility In privilege level section, check the option Run this program as Administrator
If you're running Office 2010 (Beta) Word (apparently) writes a restricted registry key. VB throws the error when scanning the registry. The key I have is:
HKCR\TypeLib\{00020905-0000-0000-C000-000000000046}\8.5
For Regmon - Filter for Process Name -> "vb6.exe" and Result -> ACCESS DENIED. Helps find it very quickly.
Fixed it with PSToosl (PSEXEC) to run registry editor. The command line is,
psexec -i -d -s c:\windows\regedit.exe
psexec needs to be run with elevated-permissions.
Edit by Jim: I'm on a Windows 7 (x64) box. Elevated permissions require the PSTools solution. XP can get away with a little less.
You could try Process Monitor to see which registry keys are accessed.
I got this on a machine that I was using for VB6 development. I had been building a lot of COM DLLs from VB6 (without binary compatibility) and the cruft that had built up in the registry eventually got too much.
Have a look at what size the registry is and what limit you have set. I doubled the registry size and then went looking for a good registry hoover.
Here is a solution from Microsoft. It references the Crystal Reports problem, but the solution just uses regedit32 to walk the HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\TypeLib and HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\CLSID registry branches for dimmed keys and correcting the security on those keys. There are also instructions to fix the security if regedit32 is unable to access the key. Article ID: 269383
In Windows 7 go to start menu then right click "Microsoft Visual Basic 6" then select properties and click Compatibility from the dialog box that appears then tick "Run this program as an administrator".
Have you tried this? Basically, it seems that it is a crystal reports issue. Hope that helps.
Perhaps worth a try going to the "User Account Control Settings".
Regards,
When I installed VB6 on Win7-64 (using instructions easily found by a search engine), it worked fine. UAC was off -- i.e. set to "never notify."
After a few weeks I turned UAC on -- i.e. set it to its default. VB6 then couldn't compile because of the "Error accessing the system registry" problem. Unfortunately, turning it off again didn't help. Apparently the damage done by turning it on was irreversible. I can't explain why this should be, but that's my experience.
Giving REGTLIB.EXE administrative privileges while leaving UAC off sounded like a great idea, but that didn't work for me either.
Finally, using Process Monitor and PsTools as described in other posts here worked. However, I had to give Full Control to large parts of my registry to Everyone. This didn't apply just to isolated keys. It seems that the compiler needs to add keys to major nodes, so I had to open up these entire nodes.
Aside from the fact that working through these steps took hours, I'm now much more exposed than I was before I tried to increase security via UAC, However, I need VB6 and don't see another solution short of a new computer.
Lesson: Don't use UAC with VB6. Except if you've arrived here it's too late for that.
It's VB6 installation issue. Try to re-intall VB6 on your system. Otherwise open "visual studio 6.0" with "Run as Administrator". Then open/browse your project .vbp file via - New Project -> Existing tab.
I have fixed the problem. But none of the suggestion above worked. What I did is giving everyone full control over the SYSTEM key in the registry. This creats a security break. I am running 64bit Windows 7 with vb6 serice pack 6B.
I'm running Windows 10 Pro (10.0.16299 Build 16299) 64 bit. I was having this error when trying to compile a VB6 DLL.
I saw several answers in this post about running in compatibility mode as administrator. I thought I would first try just running in compatibility mode for Windows XP (sp2). I was able to compile my DLL after checking that box. I didn't need to run as administrator.