2.2a Mysterious Conflict with Windows 98 SE

Last night I tried opening up 2.2a (I have the CD of 2.0) and nothing
came up. Total system freeze, can't ctr-alt-del or anything, system
is frozen on the page I was working on (I didn't get a blue or black
screen). I restarted, tried again, exact same result. I restarted,
tried running the repair feature under add/remove programs, and got
the exact same freeze. I uninstalled, restarted, ran a registry
cleaner utility and scanned my system files, and then tried
reinstalling, and it froze in the exact same way while AB was at 84%
of install (the main .exe file). I erased everything, downloaded a
new copy of AB, and got stuck in the same way at 84% again.

At this point I've tried reinstalling several times, and every time I
have to reset my comp. It always froze, with or without the CD, and
when installing it always stops at that 84%. My system files are
good, my registry is clean, there are no viruses, I have all the
latest patches and 128 megs of RAM, so I'm completely lost. I didn't
install anything or make any changes to my system: this just
happened. Every other program works fine.

Any help that could get me Army Builder back would be very much
appreciated.


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[rob]

Hmmm. This is VERY strange indeed.

First of all, I can assure you that AB didn't change (unless a virus hit
your system and modified it). And you even downloaded it again, so you've
verified that a corrupted or otherwise modified copy of AB isn't the
culprit (again, unless you have a virus that modifies programs to spread
itself - some work this way).

So, assuming you don't have a virus (per your claim), AB hasn't changed.
Therefore, SOMETHING must have changed on your system, even something
minute that you would normally think is innocuous.

Have you upgraded your operating system recently?
Have you installed and/or upgraded your web-browser recently?
Have you created a new user account that you are now logging in through?
Have you installed/removed any hardware (e.g. disk drives)?
Have you changed the drive designation of any disk drives?

I just thought of something. If the error occurs during launch AND
installation, you may very well have a bad sector on your hard drive. Can
you try installing Army Builder onto a different disk drive? If not, do NOT
uninstall the old copy which has failed and instead try installing Army
Builder into a different folder from last time. This ought to yield either
success or failure in a different spot. Another test would be to install a
different piece of software and see what happens to that. If it fails, you
can point your finger at the disk drive.

Let me know what you find out.

Thanks, Rob


At 08:42 PM 9/7/2001 +0000, you wrote:
>Last night I tried opening up 2.2a (I have the CD of 2.0) and nothing
>came up. Total system freeze, can't ctr-alt-del or anything, system
>is frozen on the page I was working on (I didn't get a blue or black
>screen). I restarted, tried again, exact same result. I restarted,
>tried running the repair feature under add/remove programs, and got
>the exact same freeze. I uninstalled, restarted, ran a registry
>cleaner utility and scanned my system files, and then tried
>reinstalling, and it froze in the exact same way while AB was at 84%
>of install (the main .exe file). I erased everything, downloaded a
>new copy of AB, and got stuck in the same way at 84% again.
>
>At this point I've tried reinstalling several times, and every time I
>have to reset my comp. It always froze, with or without the CD, and
>when installing it always stops at that 84%. My system files are
>good, my registry is clean, there are no viruses, I have all the
>latest patches and 128 megs of RAM, so I'm completely lost. I didn't
>install anything or make any changes to my system: this just
>happened. Every other program works fine.
>
>Any help that could get me Army Builder back would be very much
>appreciated.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rob Bowes (rob@wolflair.com) (650) 726-9689
Lone Wolf Development www.wolflair.com


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--- In armybuilder@y..., Rob Bowes <rob@w...> wrote:
> Hmmm. This is VERY strange indeed.
>
> First of all, I can assure you that AB didn't change (unless
> a virus hit your system and modified it). And you even
> downloaded it again, so you've verified that a corrupted or
> otherwise modified copy of AB isn't the culprit (again, unless
> you have a virus that modifies programs to spread itself - some
> work this way).

I had scanned my system just the night before the crashes with
the newest set of files for Norton Antivirus. I have the
latest version of the program, with all the patches, and have
everything set to the most paranoid and comprehensive levels.

I have just run another scan with the latest defnition files,
and again found nothing. My system file checker still says
I have no corrupt files. I've even run my version conflict
manager, and there are no obsolete files listed in use.

> So, assuming you don't have a virus (per your claim), AB hasn't
> changed. Therefore, SOMETHING must have changed on your system,
> even something minute that you would normally think is innocuous.

Other than an mp3 tag and rename program called ID3-TagIT, I
can't think of anything else I've installed in between my last
successful use of AB and its freeze-up. However, I'm going to
uninstal ID3-TagIT, restart, run my registry cleaner prog, and
see what happens.

The only things I run at all times are the most recent versions
of norton av, winamp, zonealarm, icq, and tardis (a small time
synchronization utility).

> Have you upgraded your operating system recently?

Never.

> Have you installed and/or upgraded your web-browser recently?

Yes, a few weeks ago, upgraded to IE 5.5 SP2 from SP1. Never
had any problems with my computer until now.

> Have you created a new user account that you are now logging
> in through?

Never.

> Have you installed/removed any hardware (e.g. disk drives)?

No hardware changes of any kind.

> Have you changed the drive designation of any disk drives?

No.

> I just thought of something. If the error occurs during launch
> AND installation, you may very well have a bad sector on your
> hard drive. Can you try installing Army Builder onto a
> different disk drive? If not, do NOT uninstall the old copy
> which has failed and instead try installing Army Builder into
> a different folder from last time. This ought to yield either
> success or failure in a different spot. Another test would be
> to install a different piece of software and see what happens
> to that. If it fails, you can point your finger at the disk
> drive.

I just tried installing AB into my separate D drive and had no
luck: it once again froze on the main .exe file at 84%. Last
night I completely uninstalled my MS Office 2000 and reinstalled
it, onto the same drive that previously had AB, and didn't have
a single problem.

Thanks for the attention you're giving this; I appreciate it.
I going to uninstall that program I mentioned above, and if
that doesn't work, run a complete defrag and simultaneous
scandisk on the thorough setting to check for bad sectors.
After that, I'm out of ideas and will have to reformat.


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Success!
I had a kind fellow message me offlist telling me that apparently
IE 5.x SP2 changes some of your Visual Basic files, whether you
like it or not. I reinstalled my copy of the most recent VB
Runtime Library (along with a couple of other obscure MS patches
for good measure), restarted, and then had no problem installing.
I had to restart again after installing though, as at first AB
would not recognize my CD in the drive, and kept telling me my
version was unregistered.

Thanks again for your help, Rob.


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[rob]

This is a dumbfounding development for me. You see, Army Builder doesn't
use a SINGLE thing associated with Visual Basic. So I am utterly confused....

- Rob

P.S. This has been a GRUELING past few days for me, so I won't likely be
answering some of the more indepth questions on this list for another day
or two. I'm not ignoring anyone, and I WILL get back to you as soon as I
can give your questions adequate thought. :-)


At 02:50 AM 9/13/2001 +0000, you wrote:
>Success!
>I had a kind fellow message me offlist telling me that apparently
>IE 5.x SP2 changes some of your Visual Basic files, whether you
>like it or not. I reinstalled my copy of the most recent VB
>Runtime Library (along with a couple of other obscure MS patches
>for good measure), restarted, and then had no problem installing.
>I had to restart again after installing though, as at first AB
>would not recognize my CD in the drive, and kept telling me my
>version was unregistered.
>
>Thanks again for your help, Rob.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rob Bowes (rob@wolflair.com) (650) 726-9689
Lone Wolf Development www.wolflair.com


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Rob,

If the problem is during installation, perhaps the installer you use was
written in VB or uses pieces of the VB libraries.

Just a thought...

Regards,

Brad
-----Original Message-----
From: Rob Bowes [mailto:rob@wolflair.com]
Sent: Wednesday, September 12, 2001 11:17 PM
To: armybuilder@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [AB] 2.2a Mysterious Conflict with Windows 98 SE


This is a dumbfounding development for me. You see, Army Builder doesn't
use a SINGLE thing associated with Visual Basic. So I am utterly
confused....

- Rob

P.S. This has been a GRUELING past few days for me, so I won't likely be
answering some of the more indepth questions on this list for another day
or two. I'm not ignoring anyone, and I WILL get back to you as soon as I
can give your questions adequate thought. :-)


At 02:50 AM 9/13/2001 +0000, you wrote:
>Success!
>I had a kind fellow message me offlist telling me that apparently
>IE 5.x SP2 changes some of your Visual Basic files, whether you
>like it or not. I reinstalled my copy of the most recent VB
>Runtime Library (along with a couple of other obscure MS patches
>for good measure), restarted, and then had no problem installing.
>I had to restart again after installing though, as at first AB
>would not recognize my CD in the drive, and kept telling me my
>version was unregistered.
>
>Thanks again for your help, Rob.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
Rob Bowes (rob@wolflair.com) (650)
726-9689
Lone Wolf Development
www.wolflair.com


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[rob]

Sure enough, just after I hit send, another possibility dawns on me. :-)

One thing that AB DOES use is the standard Microsoft libraries (DLLs) for
accessing the internet (for the auto-update stuff and integrate downloads).
These libraries are constantly being updated by Microsoft with each new
release of Internet Explorer. They are SUPPOSED to remain 100% backwards
compatible with previous versions, but Microsoft has never been very good
at that (they have enough trouble getting things to simply work as
advertised in each new release). It's quite possible that they broke
something in IE5 SP2 that AB relies upon. It's also possible that the
commercial installation tool I use (which is NOT written in VB) also runs
afoul of this change in behavior. I'll keep this in mind in case someone
else stumbles into this problem.

Thanks to the person who flagged this obscure solution to us! I don't think
I would have ever thought of this as a possibility. :-)

- Rob


At 02:50 AM 9/13/2001 +0000, you wrote:
>Success!
>I had a kind fellow message me offlist telling me that apparently
>IE 5.x SP2 changes some of your Visual Basic files, whether you
>like it or not. I reinstalled my copy of the most recent VB
>Runtime Library (along with a couple of other obscure MS patches
>for good measure), restarted, and then had no problem installing.
>I had to restart again after installing though, as at first AB
>would not recognize my CD in the drive, and kept telling me my
>version was unregistered.
>
>Thanks again for your help, Rob.


---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rob Bowes (rob@wolflair.com) (650) 726-9689
Lone Wolf Development www.wolflair.com


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