I have just posted some Builder Buidler and ScratchPad installers for Vista users. Unfortunately automation doesn't work in Vista for Builder Builder so a couple of buttons don't work and there are some unfortunate error messages that occur when ScratchPad tries to link to (or create) the Builder Builder App. These versions have the errors and the buttons removed. The Libronix "Copy Selection to Builder Builder" button ( ) is not installed with the app and the "Copy to Builder Builder" button (same icon) on the ScratchPad toolbar will not appear.
Automation still works for Scratchpad so the user can still paste Libronix selections into scratchpad and paste to and from Builder Builder using the Builder Builder ScratchPad toolbar ( ).
I enhanced the "Paste from ScratchPad" button ( ) a little bit so that it will paste the entire contents if nothing is selected in ScratchPad and only the selected content otherwise. The old way was to Paste the entire contents regardless. That should give the Vista users back a little bit of the flexibility that was lost upon losing the other "Copy To" buttons.
The download page where you can fetch the software is here.
I would appreciate any comments re: how things might go from anyone who installs one of these on his/her machine.
Thanks
Yours in Christ
John
Attention Please: The Reverend Gerald Rodgers and Bohuslav Wojnar.
I have a question for you.
I just stumbled upon an article that complains to Microsoft that OLE registration for MFC projects fails to write the registry entries if the user doing the install doesn't have Administration privileges.
When you installed the new versions the first time (the time that led to the error messages) were you logged in on an Administrator account or not? If not, can you try installing it again (the original download, not the Vista specific download) from an Administrator account and let me know what happens?
John McComb: Attention Please: The Reverend Gerald Rodgers and Bohuslav Wojnar. I have a question for you. I just stumbled upon an article that complains to Microsoft that OLE registration for MFC projects fails to write the registry entries if the user doing the install doesn't have Administration privileges. When you installed the new versions the first time (the time that led to the error messages) were you logged in on an Administrator account or not? If not, can you try installing it again (the original download, not the Vista specific download) from an Administrator account and let me know what happens? Thanks Yours in Christ John
Yes John. I use the only account on my notebook and that is Administrator one. I tried install again the previous version (which gave me the error message before) and I did it with the right click and running the installer in the administrator's mode, and the surprise, surprise: everything works as it should. (no error messages, all buttons work and load what they should). I re-installed without the right click and Administration mode, and it did the same. No errors. So, my conclusion is, the Vista version of installation you gave us does something to my registry what fixed the problem and I am not able to re-produce the error.
Bohuslav
Bohuslav Wojnar:Yes John. I use the only account on my notebook and that is Administrator one.
Yeah, it turns out that your only choice is to install with administrator privileges. I did some experimenting on different accounts on my pc after I wrote that last post and found out the installer blocks installation with an error message otherwise. I looked through the Inno installer documentation and found that it's the default if you don't explicitly set the user privileges, which I didn't. That's o.k. I think that's best anyway.
Bohuslav Wojnar:I tried install again the previous version (which gave me the error message before) and I did it with the right click and running the installer in the administrator's mode, and the surprise, surprise: everything works as it should. (no error messages, all buttons work and load what they should). I re-installed without the right click and Administration mode, and it did the same. No errors. So, my conclusion is, the Vista version of installation you gave us does something to my registry what fixed the problem and I am not able to re-produce the error.
O.K. now I'm very confused. The Vista version doesn't do anything to the registry that the original version doesn't do. They're identical except for a couple of error messages that are commented out. I didn't need to add or remove anything else because if the registry look-up fails (i.e. automation never took) it doesn't do anything except report the error and exit. It was the reporting of the error that was an annoyance to the user.
The only thing I can think of that could be construed as being "different" is, if you had the older version of Builder Builder (version 3.1) installed prior to your first installation attempt then the first time you run the installer you are not forced to uninstall before re-installing the new one. The files are just overwritten. However I really don't see how that could block automation from registering because it's not the installer that does that. It's the program, when it initializes.
What exactly do you mean when you say you ran it with "a right click in administrator mode"?
John McComb:What exactly do you mean when you say you ran it with "a right click in administrator mode"?
Hello John, I am sorry to confuse you with my terminology. You have to understand I use Czech Vista. So I always have to translate the commands from Czech to English. What I did was, when you click right mouse button and you get context menu, one option you get is "Run as Administrator". That's what I did. It might be this what registered the product correctly, or not?
John McComb:The only thing I can think of that could be construed as being "different" is, if you had the older version of Builder Builder (version 3.1) installed prior to your first installation attempt then the first time you run the installer you are not forced to uninstall before re-installing the new one. The files are just overwritten. However I really don't see how that could block automation from registering because it's not the installer that does that. It's the program, when it initializes.
Yes, I had an older version of Builder Builder installed before installing the new version. Anyways, it works perfect now and even more, it works in unicode, what is very important for using Czech texts. Before it changed the text and displayed the codes instead of the Czech specific characters. That is why I used till now PSPad as my HTML editor to prepare the texts for the pbb. I think I will use Builder Builder much more now. Good job. Thank you for your time and effort. God bless you John.
Bohuslav Wojnar:Hello John, I am sorry to confuse you with my terminology. You have to understand I use Czech Vista. So I always have to translate the commands from Czech to English. What I did was, when you click right mouse button and you get context menu, one option you get is "Run as Administrator". That's what I did. It might be this what registered the product correctly, or not?
I'll bet you it is.
Actually it has nothing to do with poor communication. In fact you taught me something about Windows Vista today. That option doesn't exist on my XP machine. Truth be told I don't ever recall seeing it on any machine, but that could be for lack of looking.
Bohuslav Wojnar:Yes, I had an older version of Builder Builder installed before installing the new version. Anyways, it works perfect now and even more, it works in unicode, what is very important for using Czech texts. Before it changed the text and displayed the codes instead of the Czech specific characters. That is why I used till now PSPad as my HTML editor to prepare the texts for the pbb. I think I will use Builder Builder much more now. Good job. Thank you for your time and effort. God bless you John.
That could be it too but I have a sneaking suspicion that it has more to do with the way you installed it the first time. It wouldn't make any difference the second time you tried it (without the right click menu "Run As Admin") because the uninstall from the installer won't remove the automation registry entries.
People have complained about this to Microsoft and they replied that they have no intention of fixing it in future versions of Visual Studio. They say the proper way to go about it is to install the registry entries from the installer rather than from the program. I can do that easily enough but I definitely need a Vista machine to work with first. I can't just do it and then release it to the public willy nilly because if I make a mistake (a typo or something in one of the keys) it could cause a problem that I would need to manually fix. If I'm going to put something on my web page for download I have to be sure first that it does exactly what I intend it to do.
I think, for the time being, I'll just leave things the way they are and update my download page to inform Vista users of your workaround. If it worked for you it will probably work for them. If it doesn't all they need to do to get rid of the the errors is download and install the Vista version and live without the two buttons.
Thanks again Bihuslav, you're a good guy to have on your team.
John McComb:I think, for the time being, I'll just leave things the way they are and update my download page to inform Vista users of your workaround. If it worked for you it will probably work for them. If it doesn't all they need to do to get rid of the the errors is download and install the Vista version and live without the two buttons.
Thank you John again for your excellent work. Builder Builder is a great tool. Have a blessed day.
John,
I tried to download BuilderBuilder from your website - download and install went fine, but when I try to start the application it gives an error
"Builder Builder MFC Application has encountered a problem and needs to close..."
I have XP SP3