Windows Installer Freezing
Posted: Fri Mar 08, 2013 9:24 am
Hi everybody,
I have a strange situation where WindowsInstaller freezes.
The setup is special, in that it doesn't install anything to TARGETDIR, but only selects a TARGETDIR (on a network share) where the target executable is already present.
It then creates shortcuts to the target executable.
Now say I have an old version A and a new Version B of the product. And on the server share I have a folder A with the old version A and a folder B with the new version B.
If I point whichever setup (A or B) to folder A, the installer runs through.
But if I point whichever setup (A or B) to folder B, the installer freezes at "WindowsInstaller"
Before and after invoking the windows installer, I output debug messages (kernel32.dll->OutputDebugStringA) and indeed, I see the first message, but not the second one.
One core is fully occupied, but nothing will happen, even if I let it run over the night.
Sysinternals ProcessMonitor doesn't show me anything suspicious. The last file accesses go to %TEMP%\{3C6C8901-01E2-40F2-B11D-358B17D4404E} which contains some variable values that all look good.
I tried enabling debug output for Windows installer as described here: https://user.xmission.com/~legalize/msi/debugging.html But the file doesn't get written.
To reduce it, I commented out all the purple windows installer commands, and removed the custom translations from the InstallAware project. But the behavior is still the same.
Any more ideas how to debug that problem?
Rgds
Richard
I have a strange situation where WindowsInstaller freezes.
The setup is special, in that it doesn't install anything to TARGETDIR, but only selects a TARGETDIR (on a network share) where the target executable is already present.
It then creates shortcuts to the target executable.
Now say I have an old version A and a new Version B of the product. And on the server share I have a folder A with the old version A and a folder B with the new version B.
If I point whichever setup (A or B) to folder A, the installer runs through.
But if I point whichever setup (A or B) to folder B, the installer freezes at "WindowsInstaller"
Before and after invoking the windows installer, I output debug messages (kernel32.dll->OutputDebugStringA) and indeed, I see the first message, but not the second one.
One core is fully occupied, but nothing will happen, even if I let it run over the night.
Sysinternals ProcessMonitor doesn't show me anything suspicious. The last file accesses go to %TEMP%\{3C6C8901-01E2-40F2-B11D-358B17D4404E} which contains some variable values that all look good.
I tried enabling debug output for Windows installer as described here: https://user.xmission.com/~legalize/msi/debugging.html But the file doesn't get written.
To reduce it, I commented out all the purple windows installer commands, and removed the custom translations from the InstallAware project. But the behavior is still the same.
Any more ideas how to debug that problem?
Rgds
Richard