I'm using WMI's CreateProcess() to run an installation bootstrapper process (setup.exe) on a remote machine. The setup.exe is happily able to run .msi packages but for some reason it is not able to run the vcredist.exe packages that are used to redistribute the MS VS 2008 SP1 C++ Runtimes.
What I'm seeing is that the redist package is able to extract itself into a temp folder in the root of the C:\ drive, e.g. C:\a26f91763649ecad76a09d or some such, but after that the process hangs around.
I don't know what to do to debug further - I suspect that there is a modal dialog in the hidden windows station awaiting dismissal, but I can't see what the text is. Process Explorer isn't yielding much either.
Anyone got any suggestion? The problem applies equally in Windows 2000 as in Windows 2008. We used to use a DCOM-based method to launch setup.exe remotely and this did not exhibit the problem.
Can anyone shed any light on what might be going on, or how to diagnose further.
Many thanks,
Stephen
User error! My suspicion about the modal dialog was correct. It seems that invoking the setup.exe files with a relative path somehow caused the command line arguments to get stripped when passed to the nested exe, so they ran in full UI mode! Invoking with a fully-qualified path resolved the problem.
Related
I have installed the OS in VirtualBox 4.3.8
I have compiled the Code that calls the CopyFile/CopyFileEx function in VC6, and VS2012 (for v10 and v11), but it refuses to work.
I am running the app in console mode, as Administrator.
It gives error 2: The system cannot find the file specified.
However, this code works fine for both functions on XP, Server 2003, and Windows 7.
What is the problem? Is it permissions? How can I find out what the problem is?
This is ERROR_FILE_NOT_FOUND. It's hard to look beyond the obvious explanation that the file name that you are providing when calling CopyFile refers to a file that does not exist.
Altough you don't give much info about the code, I recommend to download and run Process Monitor in background (you can filter your process).
You will see more detailed info such us if the folder really exists, etc.
I have searched and found no answer to this
I have a weird problem when running executables through developer studio (2008): a basic 'hello world' exe works OK when created through the usual dev studio project creation mechanism, but when trying to run a library based program the software crashes with STATUS_BAD_NETWORK_PATH. The program uses Qt and zlib behind the scenes and is written in C++, but (as far as I'm aware) is not dependent on any particular network locations on initialisation; we do have Sophos installed on the PC too.
The weird thing is that one cant even step into the main: the program fails well before this with the error. If we plug the network in, it starts up just fine ... The odd thing is this only occurs on a specific 64 bit Windows 7 machine.
Does anyone have any tips as to how to trace where the issue is? We've tried tracking using procmon but it is not very revealing; no obvious failures up to the point where the program crashes.
We have now figured out the answer. It transpired that there were 2 issues:
Firstly a wrapper .bat script that was launching developer studio was setting the PATH environment variable: a location in this path was being specified using a UNX style path (e.g. \\a\location\somewhere) rather than a mapped drive. The executables were not actually using this location but when the network was unplugged this it seems that this was disrupting things from dev studio
This, in tandem with a network configuration error on the PC, meant that deep down in the runes, something was failing.
So - advice if you see such an error
Check your PATH and make sure it is sensible
Look in your PC's configuration logs, and see if you can see any networking issues
...
Edit: This problem only occurs on windows 7 and vista from what I've heard.
I have a very simple app developed with an external graphics library. If I install this app into a program files directory and run it, it will crash immediately but it works fine normally, with exactly the same files. I have realised it is because you need to run the application as administrator for it to work.
I appreciate if this is a problem directly related to the graphics engine I am using, but I don't really think so (but I'm clueless). Can anyone help me?
Edit for more detail:
The application executable and files that are needed to run it are installed into the default program directory - for me, C:\Program Files (x86). If you try and run with without clicking run as administrator, it will simple freeze and say "App has stopped working. Windows is checking for a solution to the problem..." My question is basically, how can I make it so run as administrator isn't necessary?
When a program cannot perform an operation, it (the operation) should fail gracefully. My guess is your application is attempting to do something that it cannot do as a normal user and then fails to check for a return code, and then subsequently crashes. You need to identify what it is your program is doing that it should not be able to do as a normal user. For example (off the top of my head):
Write a file to Program Files (x86)
Write to HKLM
(Without more details) The problem is most likely related to the fact that your program tries to write into the directory and then excepts the file creation/modification to actually have an effect. UAC prevents applications from writing the Program Files directories without administrator privilages. The solution is to redesign your application to not rely on such behavior or store the files in question in one of the intended locations (AppData, etc. folders).
If you right-click on the EXE and go to Properties -> Compatibility there are some options that might help. You could try running the app in compatibility mode for a previous Windows version or if that doesn't work at least mark the EXE to run as administrator by default.
Gosh, this is so weird, I don't know what to say. The short version is that I have a simulator app which I spawn from my application when the user asks me to. It recently stopped working, though I can run the simulator fine from the command line or Start menu. This could be due to moving to VS2010 or Windows 7 or something I didn't notice reviewing source control diffs.
I have a second simulator which I try to spawn in the same fashion and it works fine.
By default, I'm using Qt3's QProcess wrapper around CreateProcess for this purpose, but I get the same behavior using system, my own CreateProcess, and ShellExecute.
ShellExecute of a cmd.exe "/c application params" does provide me with some more information however. I get the dialog
"The program can't start because MSVCR80.dll is missing from your computer. Try reinstalling the program to fix this problem."
Inconveniently, both the parent application and the second simulator use MSVCR80.dll.
Upon copying MSVC*80.dll from g:\windows\winsxs\x86_microsoft.vc80.crt_1fc8b3b9a1e18e3b_8.0.50727.4927_none_d08a205e442db5b5 to the same directory as my executable, the error message changes to
"Runtime Error!
Program: g:\path\to\app.exe
R6034
An application has made an attempt to load the C runtime library incorrectly.
Please contact the application's support team for more information.
Followed by
The application was unable to start correctly (0xc0000142). Click OK to close the application.
And, once again, the application runs fine from the command line with those dlls in place.
Update:
I suspected perhaps it was environment related, so changed my ShellExecute mechanism to do cmd /c set && app params. I set up a cmd.exe with those same params and my app is now crashing similarly. Will update when I figure out why :)
It is MATLAB's component runtime tool that is modifying my process's PATH variable to bad effect. It is prepending its own dir full of dll's and wreaking havoc.
A foolish tool I was using did a setenv on PATH, prepending a directory it wanted for dynamically loading some dlls, but which messed up my application later. I ended up using GetEnvironmentStrings as shown in the last example here, erasing the first entry in the PATH env var, and sending the new (original) environment to QProcess, which wraps CreateProcessA.
You need to install the CRT
This may work - if it breaks, you get to keep both pieces :-)
Try installing VC++ redistributable from here - http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?familyid=A5C84275-3B97-4AB7-A40D-3802B2AF5FC2&displaylang=en.
Remember to backup your system, create a restore point etc. before installing stuff.
Another idea -try reinstalling the failing appliacation itself. It may come with its own copy of VC++ redistributables, and reinstalling might help. Esp. trying to reinstall it using Windows 7's compability mode (perhaps go back to Vista or XP compatibility) might be even more effective.
To reiterate - you'll have to try, and I've no real idea if either of the above ideas will do you good, or even be sure to do no harm. That said, if I were faced with a similar problem, these are the steps I'd try. HTH!
I've just discovered that regtlib.exe appears to be missing from Windows 7 (and apparently from Vista as well).
I've just installed Windows 7 RC in a VM and I'm attempting to build our existing projects on the new OS. The projects are c/c++ based and I'm using visual studio 2008. In order to build these projects I need to register several tlb files that are referenced within the code base.
Has anyone also encountered this problem? And, has anyone managed to solve this?
Thanks.
Yeah regtlib was removed from vista and up. As far as I know, all it does is call LoadTypeLibEx with the REGKIND_REGISTER flag (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms221249.aspx). Maybe you could write a simple replacement.
Just came across this issue (couldn't add any components to a VB6 project on Win7). This post (Error accessing the system registry in VB 6 IDE) pointed to regtlib (which is missing from Win7). I just
set the VB6 start menu icon to 'Run As Administrator' and it worked fine for adding components and should fix any problems relating to updating the registry as well.
Regards
Ian
Finally got back to trying to build our code base on windows 7. Anyway, I went back to the installer for one of the dependencies that was causing me grief. The error message from the installer wasn't to helpful but it did point to a regasm that was being run from inside the installer.
I ran the regasm command from a cmd prompt and got more information. It appears that you need administrative credentials to perform this task and our current installers don't do the privilege escalation properly.
So, long story short, I got dlls registered and the build appears to be working.