"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...rt/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/fa...er/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/...wer/regtlb.exe

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

(with appropriate paths as necessary)

Ted.