"Interface not supported": what should I do?

[kjkhyperion]

First of all: I'm not an user of InstallShield 6 per se, let's say I suffer it, because every commercial software on earth seems to use it, and because... it doesn't work. Anymore, at least

The program I'm trying to install is ScanWizard 2.60, a scanner driver. It's downloadable from here:
http://www.microtekfiles.com/english/support/pcfiles.htm

The file's URL is:
ftp://193.195.96.90/files/pcfiles/sw260ml.exe

Some info on my system:
Windows 2000 Professional (Windows NT 5.0.2195)
Service Pack 2
installed hotfixes: Q311967, Q313829, Q314147, Q320206
Internet Explorer 5.00.3315.1000, 128 bit crypto
Windows Installer 1.11.2405.0
(need more?)

Whenever I try to start any installation based on IS 6, it fails with an error of Interface not supported. In the case of ScanWizard, with WinDbg I can see an exception 8004002 being thrown from somewhere in setup.exe

I tried all I could:
deleted the whole InstallShield directory from common program files, ran RegClean to prune the now invalid OLE registrations, re-ran setup
searched through the archives of this forum, discovered I missed stdole.tlb, restored, re-ran setup
tried to update the IS 6 engine, file downloaded from your knowledge base. Sad but somewhat funny: the update setup fails with exactly the same error ("interface not supported")

Nothing worked

So I tried more "creative" solutions:
ran setup inside Dependency Walker's profiler to see if I missed some DLLs
ran setup with Registry Monitor active to see if I missed some OLE keys
This didn't work either

Only thing I didn't try is to hook CoCreateInstance and put breakpoints at the IUnknown::QueryInterface methods of all OLE objects created by the setup, to see exactly what object doesn't support what interface

Yes, I'm a developer, and yes, I REALLY need to run successfully this setup

I know that people from InstallShield read these forums, so listen, guys: I'm not afraid to dirty my hands, tell me what you need to discover the cause of this error, I'll do anything. Need a debug dump? a trace?

I have one last question: isn't there some sort of "advanced" version of the setup stub? that shows REAL error messages, with file paths, interface names and GUIDS etc.? that produces a detailed log file? or some diagnostic program that checks the environment and tells me what's wrong?

Please please please: not all Windows users are clicking monkeys that will format and reinstall at the slightest obstacle

PS: I dare to give you some programming advice: exploit the stack-based nature of exceptions. Make all exception handlers in a chain add their little bit, instead of rethrowing the exception immediately, else the user will only get the lowest-level error

[tw0001]

Are you logged on as an administrator? If not then try that. If yes, then try the following:

run dcomcnfg.exe and

go to the Default Security tab, Default Access Permissions section and click Edit Default. Now set the privilege "Allow Access" for yourself from the drop down list. Do the same for Default Launch Permissions. Click ok and close Dcomcnfg.exe

Run the setup again.

If this doesn't work then try the following from the start-run prompt:

regsvr32 oleaut32.dll
regsvr32 olepro32.dll
regsvr32 comcat.dll
and make sure both stdole2.tlb and stdole32.tlb exist in the system32 folder.

[JacobLevin]

The suggestions tw0001 made were good.

They are also contained in the knowledge base article #Q104985d that we provide at:
http://support.installshield.com/kb/

We have seen errors such as these before and from the investigation of those we have always found those to be due to some corruption on the system.

We have found the steps listed in this article to fix well over 90% of these errors.

I apologize for the poor experience you have had, I certainly hope the steps in this article will help you get around this.

[kjkhyperion]

Are you logged on as an administrator?Yes. I tried both logging in interactively and running the setup with runas
go to the Default Security tab, Default Access Permissions section and click Edit Default. Now set the privilege "Allow Access" for yourself from the drop down list. Do the same for Default Launch Permissions.The existing configuration was OK. I doubt it's a problem with OLE, though, as everything else works perfectly
If this doesn't work then try the following from the start-run prompt:Actually, in desperation I had already re-registered ALL DLLs. However, I tried, and it still doesn't work.
and make sure both stdole2.tlb and stdole32.tlb exist in the system32 folder. *sigh*. Yes, they are there, I already checked. I'm sure it cannot be so easy, I'm not that lucky...

[tw0001]

Would you be willing to install a newer version of IE? I have heard that it sometimes fixes this problem, e.g.

http://www.quickbooks.com/support/faqs/qbw2002/premier/201444.html

Also, try the following (I noticed you had trouble with some of your TLB files). Download regtlb.exe from the following site

ftp://ftp.woll2woll.com/pub/wol2wol/editpower/regtlb.exe

and then run
regtlb stdole2.tlb
regtlb stdole32.tlb
regtlb stdole.tlb

(with appropriate paths as necessary)

Ted.

[pramodhc]

Hi..,

I am also facing the same problem.I have worked out all the possible workouts given in the Knowledgebase articles and given in the forums but none of them is worked out.If anybody has the solution please help....Another thing is i try to update ikernal.exe using one click and install,am getting the same error in the IE.
I am using windows2000 and i got this error when i try to install JDK1.4.1

[JacobLevin]

We have seen this error a number of times and researched the cause on many an occasion.

Almost every time the above solutions have worked and I can't think of any time with 6.3x that it was not an issue with a corrupted system.

In order to find out whether this is a bug with that version of the product or not, you would have to find out the actual version of ISPro that was used to create the install of the JRE 1.4.

[pramodhc]

Hi jacob levin,

Thanks for the reply.How to find out the ISPro version that JRE1.4.1 is using.Could you suggest some fixes so that we can try those things out in our machines.We are using Windows 2000 SP3.

Regards
Pramodh c

[JacobLevin]

All the suggestions that we can give you are in those KB articles. I wish I could give you something more than that.

One way to get an idea of the version would be to check the version of the setup.exe. This usually matches the approximate version - it MAY NOT be the exact version of Professional that was used.

The problem is that if there is a workaround with the given version, it is unlikely that we would be able to give it to you since it is Sun Microsystems that created the install and they would have to modify it to work around it.

[pramodhc]

Thanks for the reply.Actually we are getting this error('interface not registered") only in some machines while installing jdk1.4.1. In some machines we are able to install without any problem.Other thing we have tried is reformatted one machine that having installation problem (Windows 200) and tried then its is working fine.So it is machine dependant problem.I have searched sun site ,but every body is giving the url of install shield.If you dont mind could please give the debug procedure so that we can trace out where exactly it is failing.

Regards
Pramodh C

[JacobLevin]

Unfortunately I can't give you the debugging procedure to do that.

What would need to happen here is that you would have to make sure to let Sun know that there is a problem you are seeing with their install and they would have to contact our support department.

After that we would take the appropriate steps.

[penno1]

Hi everyone

Don't know if this will help or not.... I too had this "interface not registered" problem and searched everywhere and tried everything. Nothing would work for me. So I reinstalled Windows (2000) and I still had the problem. Then I flashed my BIOS with the latest version - and evething was ok.

I think a previous BIOS update somehow interfered with InstallShield.... Or hey it could be completely unrelated (I was trying a lot of things to get it fixed). Might be worth a try though!

Penno