IA9 Express - Merge Modules not installing

meanjay · Post by **meanjay** » Tue Aug 11, 2009 2:04 pm

I have an installation that has worked on some machines. On other machines I get an error when the MSI trys to install my merge modules. In this case, it fails to find the comdlg32.ocx in it's temporary path.

c:\\docume~1\\alluse~1\\applic~1\\{C4D14~1\\Redist\\...\\comdlg32.ocx

Sure enough that path is not valid. There is no folder with those merge modules.

Please see the attached screen shot showing the error dialog. This occurs with all the merge modules in this particular build.

What is going on here? How can I get past this?

Thanks

JDM

File Attached:

comdlg32_error.jpg

neillans · Post by **neillans** » Tue Aug 11, 2009 2:09 pm

Hi JDM,

Interesting error you have there - I would advise enabling logging to see what is happening regarding the merge modules.

Also, have you tried a different build type (which type are you using at present?)?

meanjay · Post by **meanjay** » Tue Aug 11, 2009 2:49 pm

I am using the "uncompressed" build. Nothing exotic, I think.

If I enable debugging, where to the logs that it creates live?

JDM

neillans · Post by **neillans** » Tue Aug 11, 2009 2:54 pm

Hi JDM,

For full information on the logging options, please review the help file, knowledgebase or on the forum - this is a topic that has been covered many times in depth.

However, in summary:

setup.exe /l=c:\\path\\to\\logfile.txt

Setup will create the log file at the specified path.
For further detail, you can enable Microsoft's MSI logging - information on this can be found in MSDN or Microsoft's knowledgebase.

meanjay · Post by **meanjay** » Tue Aug 11, 2009 3:25 pm

I ran the setup again on that machine with the debug turned on. It is attached. I can see where it throws the error. Basically, the setup expects the comdlg32.ocx file to be in a folder that just doesn't exist.

There is possible contributing factor - I am doing this install remotely using Remote Desktop. I am using "MSTSC.EXE -admin" to reach the "console" of that machine so it should be ok, but I don't know for sure.

Right now, I'm dead in the water until I can get this working. Do you have any tricks or suggestions? Please advise

Thanks

JDM

File Attached:

log.txt

neillans · Post by **neillans** » Tue Aug 11, 2009 3:44 pm

Hmm - it is very possible that you are hitting a redirection problem caused by Terminal Services.

Does the installation execute as per normal on other machines? Is this problem only evident over Terminal Services?

Is it possible to try the installation on this machine but not using Terminal Services?

Have you tried manually installing the problomatic merge module on the machine?

meanjay · Post by **meanjay** » Tue Aug 11, 2009 4:11 pm

I can't do it without remote desktop.

I did just learn one other thing. This "machine" is actually a VM that the customer stood up to run my server application. Does that make a difference? I have used VMs alot and never noticed this sort of problem.

There is no way to reach the computer without Remote Desktop unless they put VNC directly on that VM. I don't think they'll go for that, though.

I'm reasonably certain that I could install the merge modules directly by copying the OCX files into my app path. However, I'd rather not do it that way and it appears that I'm seeing some sort of bug in InstallAware.

Any thoughts? Thanks.

JDM

neillans · Post by **neillans** » Wed Aug 12, 2009 2:19 am

Hi JDM,

VM: There should be no issues running installs on a virtual machine; as far as the installer is concerned it is just a system.

I don't actually think this is a bug in the IA engine as such; it sounds more like a bug in the merge module - which is why I asked you to try it seperately on the machine. Which merge module in particular are you using?

meanjay · Post by **meanjay** » Wed Aug 12, 2009 9:23 am

If it's a bug in the merge module then it's a bug in many of them. Currently my MSI chokes (with the same error) on:

comdlg32.ocx
mswinsck.ocx
msflxgrd.ocx

I recently purchased IA9 and was hoping all this was going to actually work. If I'm left manually installing merge modules, then basically all InstallAware has done is provide a glorified batch file to distribute my application. Surely there must be a solution that doesn't involve manually doing anything - that's the beauty of InstallAware, right?

neillans · Post by **neillans** » Wed Aug 12, 2009 9:26 am

Well, the merge module contents (and resulting install scripts) are not something that we have direct control over.

Can you please say which particular merge module you are using so I can investigate this fully? It does sound like you are hitting a bug in the the actual module, however, without knowing which module you are seeing the error on, I have very little information to go on in order to work towards reproducing the case.

meanjay · Post by **meanjay** » Wed Aug 12, 2009 9:38 am

There are three merge modules in my project:

COMDLG32.MSM
MSFLXGRD.MSM
MSWINSCK.MSM

There are no options that I can see to adjust anything about those modules. I don't even know where I could get those modules to install manually. I do know that in the end they are just OCX files that need to present on the system.

neillans · Post by **neillans** » Wed Aug 12, 2009 9:50 am

Thanks - I'll stick these into Orca and see what I can find internally in them.

As I have said, these merge modules are developed (and provided) by third parties, and not by InstallAware. As such, I'm not 100% sure what we can do to tweak them to make them work, but I'm happy to have a look to identify the root cause. One possibility is to manually include the ocx's and register them as part of your install.

midnightSun · Post by **midnightSun** » Fri May 07, 2010 12:48 pm

Is the issue the 16bit naming?

IA9 Express - Merge Modules not installing

IA9 Express - Merge Modules not installing

Re: IA9 Express - Merge Modules not installing