Big Black Bars

houlton · Postby **houlton** » Fri Mar 30, 2012 9:02 am

Hi

I am currently building an installation script in InstallAware Studio 2012, and my boss tested it at home. He reports:-

"Big Black Bar across many dialogs i.e. Select Installation location"

I have never had Big Black Bars across any dialogs and don't know what to do about this. Has anybody experienced this problem and what is the solution?

Martin

Postby **FrancescoT** » Fri Mar 30, 2012 9:58 am

Dear Martin,

probably if you can provide a screenshot on what your Boss has seen ... could be helpful.

Regards

bokkie · Postby **bokkie** » Mon Apr 02, 2012 3:20 pm

Could it be similar to a problem I get in VS quite often and which - once in a while - also affects my IA setups as well, namely, an inconsistency-cum-glitch with the video card? I get black bars appearing in VS's intellisense and some text in setups get affected too. Not often, admittedly, but nothing I can't actually solve except by cancelling the intellisense popup or moving the setup dialogs around the screen usually does the trick. This could explain why he gets a problem and others don't. Perhaps compare the hardware on his and yours and see if a video card spook isn't causing it.

I don't really know how to prove it but if his is the only machine affected then I'd lean towards an environment issue?

houlton · Postby **houlton** » Mon Apr 30, 2012 6:14 am

Hi Francesco and Peter

I have belatedly got hold of screenshots of the big black bars that appear on dialogs when my boss runs an InstallAware script. These screenshots are attached. I can assure you the bars are not part of the dialog designs.

Any thoughts as to why this is happening and what we can do to fix it?

Martin

Postby **FrancescoT** » Mon Apr 30, 2012 7:38 am

Dear Martin,

I seen your screenshots and honestly ... I do not know?

It is very strange ... the the only possible thing that comes to my mind, it could be a problem with the video card of that PC.
If this happens with a particular PC only.

Regards

bokkie · Postby **bokkie** » Mon Apr 30, 2012 8:44 am

Martin,

Does it always happen when your boss runs the installer on his machine? If it does happen consistently or say 90% of the time, could you consider changing the screen resolution on his machine and repeating the installation a number of times to see if there is a repeatable outcome.

Those black bars look very much like the ones I see when I run VS. I inherited a much faster machine and I get that problem occuring now and it never happened on the old machine I have sitting next to me on my desk. I'm still inclined to think it's environmental.

I did notice something a few weeks ago. I have SnagIt installed. It records the screen contents. When I recorded a support problem I was having in VS' IDE, I recorded the project interaction and not once in the recording session did I get a problem. Once I stopped recording the black content came back and I recorded well over an hours-worth of screen content. I wonder then, if SnagIt's 15+ frames per second capture might have "slowed" the graphics or refresh rate down to the point where it wobbled into good conduct. Just an idea...

SteveDude · Postby **SteveDude** » Wed May 02, 2012 2:09 pm

I'm getting the same problem. It happens when I set the background color of a label to Transparent and the dialog background to white. On XP I will get the black bar on some labels, some not, but what consistantly happens is the background is never white, but the buttonface color.

Run it on Vista or Win7, no problem.

Postby **FrancescoT** » Fri May 04, 2012 10:24 am

Dear Guys,

is it possible to have a test project to verify?

Let me know.

Regards

SteveDude · Postby **SteveDude** » Sat May 05, 2012 12:06 pm

Unfortuanetly it doesn't happen with the test project I tried...it is very inconsistant, but these are the common factors.

1. Using the Vista Glass control in a dialog and using the Vista Glass sample dialogs.
2. Setting the backgound to white.
3. Setting the label background to transparent.
4. Project built on Windows 7.
5. Completed setup run on XP.

What is strange, when it does happen, it will always happen on the same label. The workaround is to leave the background color alone. I even tried just putting a shape in the background and colored it white. Same problem. I should also note that it does not happen when you test the dialog in the dialog editor.

SteveDude · Postby **SteveDude** » Sun May 06, 2012 11:23 pm

...just another comment on this...I have never seen it happen if you do not use the Vista Glass component.

Postby **FrancescoT** » Mon May 07, 2012 12:15 pm

I'll try it!

Regards

houlton · Postby **houlton** » Wed May 09, 2012 3:53 am

Hi,

I thought I'd try getting rid of the VistaGlass component, but I design the dialog, delete the VistaGlass component, close and save the dialog, design it again, and the VistaGlass component is still there! What am I doing wrong?

Martin

QooScho · Postby **QooScho** » Tue May 07, 2013 6:05 am

I have the same issue when I execute my setup on a Server 2012 system.
This black bars appears only on two dialogs which I made new.

No problems with this setup on Windows 7 and Server 2008 R2

any ideas?

regards
Hans

Postby **FrancescoT** » Tue May 07, 2013 7:42 am

Dear Hans,

it is not necessary to delete the Vista Glass control, just turn it OFF by setting the "GlassEnabled" property to FALSE.

The Aero Glass theme first introduced in Windows Vista and enhanced in Windows 7, has been abandoned for Windows 8 & Windows Server 2012 to improve the overall performance of Windows and energy efficiency.

With the last IA major release ( IA 15 natively supports WIN 8 & WIN SERV 2012 ) have been introduced several modifications with the dialog's routines to improve draw functionalities and possible Areo theme conflicts with the more recent OSes.

Hope this helps you.

Regards

QooScho · Postby **QooScho** » Tue May 07, 2013 8:00 am

Dear Francesco
thank you for help.

<<it is not necessary to delete the Vista Glass control, just turn it OFF by setting the "GlassEnabled" property to FALSE.

Where can I find this setting? In the Dialog?
But why are the black bars only on two dialogs and not at all?

I have not IA15, I work with IA11

kind regards
Hans