Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with installer

Damn it, lenny. Come on now.

koeselitz — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 20:29:40 -0800

Increasingly annoying problem installing Debian 5.0.0 'lenny' on an HP G60 with an Itanium (ia64) processor that is currently running Vista Home Premium. Specifically, the debian-installer consistently falls under the impression that I have an AMD 64-bit (amd64) processor. Why? So I told a client (one who's more adventurous than most, which is awesome!) that I'd install Debian 5 on his laptop this weekend; the specs are above. However, I've found it impossible to boot the standard debian-installer, and difficult to run the installer-loader for netbooting correctly. Here are the steps I've followed:

1) First, I wanted to try this new wubi-like Debian installer loader to see how easy it was and to see if I could possibly recommend it to people. In general, it went very smoothly; I downloaded and ran the Windows loader, selecting the 'Expert/custom' install and the 'stable' release. This went fine. Then, at the end of the loading of the installer, it prompted me to reboot, which I did. This brought me into the Vista BCD selection screen, from which I could choose 'Windows Vista' and 'debian installer.' Of course, I selected debian installer. That brought up the debian installer. It took a few times rebooting to get it to recognize my network hardware and download all the installation components, but finally it did; I proceeded through the install, set up separate partitions for swap, /root and /home, and installed the base system. Then I set up a GRUB.

After the installation was finished and I had a partition with Debian on it, I spent some time figuring out chainloading a GRUB. Not excessively difficult, especially with EasyBCD.

But when I booted Debian from the chainloaded GRUB, the kernel would run along and start booting until a certain point, at which time it would fail at a procedure and stop. Right off I figured there was just a problem with the install, so I turned around, jumped back into Vista, and ran the same install again.

And that's when I noticed what the problem had been: watching the installation take place, it was clear that the installer was downloading and installing the files with the '.amd64.' extension in the middle of them. It thought this was an amd64 machine! But it's not!

I let it finish the install, but the same thing: an inexplicably unbootable system.

So I deleted that partition and started over a different way.

2) I downloaded the full installation DVD of 'lenny' from debian.org. (I checked the md5 sum, by the way.) I burned a copy (with InfraRecorder) and booted up again; but when the BIOS screen finished and disappeared, the DVD drive spent about ten seconds running, a flashing cursor appeared in the top left-hand corner of the screen, and after about a minute and a half, the computer booted back into the BCD selection screen (where I only had the options to select Vista and the Debian installer, which I'd since deleted anyway, so it wouldn't boot to that.) I thought to myself, 'ah- a BIOS issue. Simple.' So I went into the BIOS - which is, by the way, completely current, and this is a brand-new laptop - and checked: it's set to boot to CD-ROM. That's when it occurred to me that some BIOSes don't have the necessary drivers to boot from DVDs - okay, simple fix, right?

3) I then downloaded the set of three full install CDs from debian.org, md5sum-checked them, and burned copies. But when I try to boot these, the same thing happens! I've tried pretty much all installation images supported by my architecture now - I went back and tried installing the 'testing' package, then the smaller netinst image. Same thing on boot every time.

4) At this point, I start to get worried about the way this thing can't seem to boot to CD even though the BIOS is set up for that. So I grab my Knoppix boot cd (5.3.1) - works just fine, boots right up into Knoppix! Fluke? I grab my Super GRUB Disk - same thing, boots fine. I d/l a new version of the latest Knoppix (a disappointment, by the way, since they're moving toward something sparser and it's pretty stripped-down) - boots just fine. What's going on?

The only thing I can imagine is that the installer invariably sees this machine as amd64 instead of what it is, ia64, and therefore can neither boot into the installed (amd64) debian system nor boot to the proper disk. But that's just a working theory - frankly, I'm pretty damned confused. I'd be satisfied if I could get the installer loader to recognize correctly, as that's the farthest I've gotten with any method. I'm getting more frustrated as time goes on; I've always loved the Debian installer, and I've run installations on it about six times! It's never not worked like this. Help!

Does anyone know what the hell is going on?

How to force an MSI dialog to repaint

Fezboy! — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 12:13:20 -0800

How to force Windows Installer (MSI) to redraw a listbox? So we want to allow our users to set n configurations when they install our product. Each configuration is keyed to a value in a list box. The installer dialog, as designed, gives the user a listbox displaying the current config keys, a button to delete a value selected in the list box, an edit field for entering a new configuration key, and a button for adding said configuration key to the listbox table.

All works swimmingly except that the list box on the dialog screen does not refresh/repaint when a value has been added or removed. If the user cycles off the dialog (Previous / Next) and then returns to this screen after adding or removing a config key the listbox will show the current values. Per my PO, this is unacceptable (and I agree).

The only solution I've found to work is to create two identical dialog screens and toggle between them at the end of the add/remove action. This forces the repaint and from the end user's POV this process is transparent. Unfortunately, my PO doesn't find this solution acceptable either.

So, having exhausted Google and my patience with MSDN, I turn to the hive mind in the event someone else has come across this problem and solved it in a more elegant manner. If you think it might help, I can post code snippets and link to screencaps. I have a vested interest in getting this done today so I can leave at a reasonable hour.

I want to spy on an OS X installer to find out what files it's leaving on my computer. Can I?

alaaarm — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 10:51:10 -0800

Is there a program for OS X which can monitor *exactly* what an installer does, so that I could find out every file or setting it's modifying? I've a Fuji Scansnap 5100OEX2 scanner that I use with my MacBook. Like a fool, I installed the latest driver update. It doesn't work well for me at all. When I deleted it (according to Fuji's instructions) any attempt to re-install the older, better driver fails because it insists that a newer version still exists on my computer.

I've checked everywhere I can for hidden files left behind by the newer driver, etc. I'm at a complete loss, and my scanning has ground to a halt.

Is there a program I might use which could monitor *exactly* what the installer does, so that I could install the newer driver again and find out which file or setting it's modifying such that even after it's supposedly deleted, the old driver "knows" that the newer driver was once on my machine?

How to use external installer parameters?

danblaker — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 13:34:22 -0800

I'd like to make a Windows installer customizable via external parameters (e.g. from an installer.ini file). The compiled installer will be distributed to multiple researchers, who will install the software on all client machines in their respective studies. The current installer sets a default value for the “StudyName” registry key, so the researchers would have to change it on each machine using RegEdit after install. I'd like to allow them to set the value before installing (e.g. by editing a text file) and have it override the default.

I have the existing Inno Setup source script, but I'd be glad to use another (free) installer package if Inno can't do it.

Cygwin sshd problems

Calibandage — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 11:57:30 -0800

Cygwin sshd two-part question. 1. Why does the sshd service sometimes interfere with program installations (making the installer hang)?

2. Why did a machine that used to allow remote ssh logins suddenly start refusing with the message "ssh_exchange_identification: Connection closed by remote host" ?

For the first part, now I try to just kill the service before I install anything so I can prevent the installer from hanging. For the second part, it's conceivable that the remote host has some very old version compared to the local host.

Both hosts are running win2k.

... and run(time) with it!

ChrisR — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 15:42:00 -0800

How best to extract the Java runtime environment for repackaging with an application? I need to package the JRE on windows and linux in a ./jre directory for distribution with my application, and I'd like to do so with a minimum of fuss and registry|/usr/local mess. How should I go about it?

Bypass administrator priveleges!?!?

nserrano — Wed, 19 Jul 2006 13:09:03 -0800

What did I do to gain Administrator privileges to install software and how can I do it again? Background info: I work for a company that restricts users to install software in the C:\Program files folder. People can't install Yahoo or MSN messenger nor programs that install themselves (meaning you can't change the installation location). I did however found out you can install a program directly to the c: drive or to the users folder, that is if you can change the location when installing the program. I also have access to manipulate the registry. This still does not let me install yahoo or msn messenger or a few other programs. I can't even pull up the date/time window.
What I did: I downloaded the trial version of ABBYY Finereader Pro and installed it successfully. When I tried to uninstall it through add/remove option in windows, it didn't let me (told me it was busy even after closing it in task manager) so I went to the registry and deleted all traces of the program (I went to find and searched everything with ABBYY and Finereader and just deleted everything that came up. I know that was stupid.) When I tried to install it again, it gave me a registry error so I couldn't install it again. I searched the internet with the error ("the configuration data for this product is corrupt") and was told to add an "installation key" and some other keys (one of the websites is http://support.esri.com/index.cfm?fa=knowledgebase.techarticles.articleShow&d=24710). Also I downloaded PCmechanic and tried to fix the registry. The last thing was to download a program from microsoft )Windows Installer CleanUp Utility from http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;290301) to recover the registry (funny thing is that I could install everything else but not ABBYY again). after all those steps I was able to install ABBYY again. Something that I did or one of the programs I did gave me access to install any program I desired without the "Administrator access required" box. Can anyone tell me what I did and how can I do it again without doing all those steps again? I'm running Windows XP Pro. Let me know if you need any further information.

How to monitor software installation

vraxoin — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 09:15:39 -0800

I'm looking for software that will monitor Windows while I install some other piece of software and then generate a report of what the installer did (copy files, create registry entries, etc.). I'm trying to reverse engineer an installer for a client, but the client doesn't have all of the source for the original installer. I feel certain that such a thing exists, but I'm having no luck digging it up. If such a thing exists for OSX, that's a bonus.