Vista - Windows Vist Home OEM Edition and zip files

I have authored a program that utilizes a third party plug in to zip and un
zip files. The plug in is based the public-domain InfoZip project. The
program has worked fine for several years until Windows Vista OEM Home
Edition came out. It still works fine on all other editions of Vista just not
the Windows Vista OEM Home Edition. Does anyone have any idea as to why it
does not work on Windows Vista OEM Home Edition?

> Edition came out. It still works fine on all other editions of Vista just
> not
> the Windows Vista OEM Home Edition. Does anyone have any idea as to why it
> does not work on Windows Vista OEM Home Edition?


I dunno the answer off top of my head, but it will probably depend on what
you mean by "does not work".

- does it fail to load? Or it loads, but then crashes?
- do you get an error message?
- how do you launch the application?
- what language/tool did you use to "author" the application?
- what kind of system-provided APIs does it use?
- is it a GUI app? a command line app? etc.
- have you tried running the application in a debugger, and what errors did
you observe?

Basically, I think we need a lot more info, in order to provide a useful
answer.

--
Andrew McLaren
amclar (at) optusnet dot com dot au

rtford2112 wrote:
> I have authored a program that utilizes a third party plug in to zip and un
> zip files. The plug in is based the public-domain InfoZip project. The
> program has worked fine for several years until Windows Vista OEM Home
> Edition came out. It still works fine on all other editions of Vista just not
> the Windows Vista OEM Home Edition. Does anyone have any idea as to why it
> does not work on Windows Vista OEM Home Edition?



Perhaps because there's no such thing as "Windows Vista OEM Home
Edition?" Seriously, though, why would you have assumed that it would?
Have you asked the developer(s) of the product if they have a
Vista-compatible version?



--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:
http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -Benjamin Franklin

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. -Bertrand Russell

The plug in(xtra) is imbedded in the program and the zipping and unzipping of
the files happen without the user knowing it.
The program was authored in Macromedia Direstor MX 2004.
When the program trys to zip the file for the first time it will crash the
whole program.
I do not get a specific error message. Just tht the program has encountered
an error and will close.
I have used a log file to trace the problem and it occurs at the code to zip
the file.
I have never been able to duplicate the error here.
The common factor of the error is that it only happens on new computers that
come from places like Best Buy or Curcuit City with Windows already installed.
I have gotten a new home computer form Dell with Vista Home edition on it
and not had a problem.

Thank you very much for taking the time to help.

Raymond Ford
Techcom


"Andrew McLaren" wrote:

> > Edition came out. It still works fine on all other editions of Vista just
> > not
> > the Windows Vista OEM Home Edition. Does anyone have any idea as to why it
> > does not work on Windows Vista OEM Home Edition?
>
>
> I dunno the answer off top of my head, but it will probably depend on what
> you mean by "does not work".
>
> - does it fail to load? Or it loads, but then crashes?
> - do you get an error message?
> - how do you launch the application?
> - what language/tool did you use to "author" the application?
> - what kind of system-provided APIs does it use?
> - is it a GUI app? a command line app? etc.
> - have you tried running the application in a debugger, and what errors did
> you observe?
>
> Basically, I think we need a lot more info, in order to provide a useful
> answer.
>
> --
> Andrew McLaren
> amclar (at) optusnet dot com dot au
>
>
>

OEM editions come from places such as Best Buy or Curcuit City.
The error does not occur on any other computers other then ones that come
from retail stores such as those.
We have tested the program on every version of Vista and have never been
able to duplicate the problemn here. We have a couple Dell computers that we
have installed the different version of Vista on to test.
The developer of the plug in has never heard of this issue before.

"Bruce Chambers" wrote:

> rtford2112 wrote:
> > I have authored a program that utilizes a third party plug in to zip and un
> > zip files. The plug in is based the public-domain InfoZip project. The
> > program has worked fine for several years until Windows Vista OEM Home
> > Edition came out. It still works fine on all other editions of Vista just not
> > the Windows Vista OEM Home Edition. Does anyone have any idea as to why it
> > does not work on Windows Vista OEM Home Edition?
>
>
>
> Perhaps because there's no such thing as "Windows Vista OEM Home
> Edition?" Seriously, though, why would you have assumed that it would?
> Have you asked the developer(s) of the product if they have a
> Vista-compatible version?
>
>
>
> --
>
> Bruce Chambers
>
> Help us help you:
> http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm
> http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
>
> They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
> safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -Benjamin Franklin
>
> Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. -Bertrand Russell
>

rtford2112 wrote:
> OEM editions come from places such as Best Buy or Curcuit City.
> The error does not occur on any other computers other then ones that come
> from retail stores such as those.
> We have tested the program on every version of Vista and have never been
> able to duplicate the problemn here. We have a couple Dell computers that we
> have installed the different version of Vista on to test.
> The developer of the plug in has never heard of this issue before.
>

In that case, you (or the plug-in's developer) will need to consult the
specific manufacturers of those specific computers to determine what
customizations they make to their OEM installations that may be
preventing the plug-in from working.


--

Bruce Chambers

Help us help you:
http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -Benjamin Franklin

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. -Bertrand Russell

Thank you for your help. I will do that.


"Bruce Chambers" wrote:

> rtford2112 wrote:
> > OEM editions come from places such as Best Buy or Curcuit City.
> > The error does not occur on any other computers other then ones that come
> > from retail stores such as those.
> > We have tested the program on every version of Vista and have never been
> > able to duplicate the problemn here. We have a couple Dell computers that we
> > have installed the different version of Vista on to test.
> > The developer of the plug in has never heard of this issue before.
> >
>
> In that case, you (or the plug-in's developer) will need to consult the
> specific manufacturers of those specific computers to determine what
> customizations they make to their OEM installations that may be
> preventing the plug-in from working.
>
>
> --
>
> Bruce Chambers
>
> Help us help you:
> http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm
> http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html
>
> They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
> safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -Benjamin Franklin
>
> Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. -Bertrand Russell
>

> The plug in(xtra) is imbedded in the program and the zipping and unzipping
> of
> the files happen without the user knowing it.
> The program was authored in Macromedia Direstor MX 2004.
> When the program trys to zip the file for the first time it will crash the
> whole program.
> I do not get a specific error message. Just tht the program has
> encountered
> an error and will close.
> I have used a log file to trace the problem and it occurs at the code to
> zip
> the file.
> I have never been able to duplicate the error here.
> The common factor of the error is that it only happens on new computers
> that
> come from places like Best Buy or Curcuit City with Windows already
> installed.
> I have gotten a new home computer form Dell with Vista Home edition on it
> and not had a problem.

Hi Raymond,

I'd guess the process is hitting an Access Violation (ie, an invalid memory
reference, a 0xC0000005 error).

To confim this, and see what is causing the AV, you'd usually run the
application in a debugger. When the process hits the AV, the debugger will
catch the exception, instead of letting the app close. This allows you to
investigate what particular module within the process (EXE, DLL, OCX, etc)
is misbehaving, while everything is still loaded in memory.

The "standard" Windows debugger is WinDBG, which you can download as part of
the Windows Debugging Tools package from:
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/devtoo...g/default.mspx

There are many other 3rd party debuggers available, as well. WinDBG is not
terribly difficult to use, but it's not especially "user-friendly", either -
if you haven't used it before, you'd probably want to track down a colleague
with debugging experience, to walk you through it. However once you get the
hang of it, then any process on the machine is an open book to you; you can
see exactly what is happening and why.

If it is only happening on some machines and not others, I'd guess that the
offending machines have some additional software installed which is getting
loaded into the process space. Compare this configuration of the offending
machines versus the non-offending machines (installed software, etc), and
the culprit is likely somewhewre in the delta.

I'm alway s open to new bugs, but ... this one doesn't sound like a bug or
limitation of Vista Home OEM, as such.

Good luck with it,
--
Andrew McLaren
amclar (at) optusnet dot com dot au