LabVIEW Installer Fails

[Jo-Jo]

I am working with Windows 7 64-bit, and LabVIEW 2015.

I have created an installer for an application I wrote. I was able to install it on one computer (also running win7 64-bit), but on two others it fails with the following error:

targetdir is undefined, the directory table seems malformed. Aborting...

Here are the things I have tried:

1) I have tried the following KB, but I already have the directory mentioned: http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/allkb/24E09BDC314EB93A8625758D004ECBC6

2) I have tried using LabVIEW 32 bit and 64 bit.

3) I have removed all additional installers from the installation, and rebuilt it.

4) I have tried manually creating the installation target folder in Program Files.

5) I am logged in as administrator.

6) I have tried running the program as administrator.

7) I have tried installing it on two different windows 7 machines.

😎 I have tried completely removing the installer from the project, and recreating it from scratch.

9) I have tried renaming the installer, and changing the installation directory.

None of the above things had any affect.

Can anyone tell me why this installer doesn't work on two out of the three computers I have tried it on?

[James.M]

Can you share the source code so we can try to replicate the problem?

Have you tried running "CHKDSK /R" command (as administrator) to see if you have some bad sectors? This might take some time.

[altenbach]

Wildely guessing: do you have admin rights? Do the computers have restrictive IT policies? Is the install location on a network drive? Did you scan the HD for errors? Did you check for malware? Are the installer locations mostly at the defaults or highly customized? Can you attach some code?

[Jo-Jo]

Thanks for the quick response.

I do have admin rights, and I did try running the installer as admin.

I don't know of any IT policies that would prevent me from installing this thing.

The installation location is the computer I am working on, it is not on the network.

The install locations are default, except I did change the names from my application and whatnot, of course.

I am about to scan the HD for errors.

I did not check for malware, but that seems unlikely (I am working on a corporate computer with all the normal corporate IT anti malware stuff installed).

I created a whole new project containing a super simple VI, created an installer, and it does the same thing. I have attached it here. This makes me think that the project wasn't corrupted or anything. Although, now I have no idea what's going on.

Can one of you try this out?

[James.M]

I built the installer, but it worked fine, so it's something to do with your computer. Can you provide the actual installer you built on your computer? Let's make sure the installer is being built correctly.

[altenbach]

Does it work correctly if you don't include the runtime engine in the installer?

Just wondering if there is some conflict, e.g. do the destination PCs have full LabVIEW installed, but maybe a slightly different flavor (e.g. SP1 vs non-SP1, etc.)

[Jo-Jo]

I rebuilt the installer on the test project I attached earlier, but without the runtime engine (as that made it too big to attach here). Now when I try to run the installer I get the following error:

Fatal Error!! Required NIPathsDir property LV2015DIR64 is undefined.

I do have LV2015 64-bit installed (I am testing on the same computer I used to create the installer).

Here is the installer and executable that I created. Can you let me know if this works for you?

It looks like the computer that the real installer worked on did not have LabVIEW installed, but the two computers that it didn't work on did have LabVIEW installed. However, I tried to create an installer without the runtime engine, or any other extras, and it still didn't work.

[Jo-Jo]

I'm pretty sure my problem was not with the LabVIEW installer per se. One of my coworkers received the same error when trying to install DAQmx from disk on a different computer. I asked one of our IT guys to wipe the computer I was trying to install on, and just install the OS (no, anti-virus, encryption, etc.). On the clean computer the installer worked as expected, so it looks like the installer was having trouble with something that our IT department is putting on our computers.

If I can figure out what it is that's causing the problem, I'll post it here in case someone else runs into this issue.

Thanks for all the help.

[alba89]

Could you solve your problem? 🙂

[Jo-Jo]

Yes, I did solve it. I should have posted earlier, but I forgot. It's been a while, but I think I remember it somewhat.

Acording to our IT department, Microsoft pushed out some Windows update that caused the problem. Microsoft then pushed out a fix some days later. I think our IT department had to unistall some update, and reinstall a newer one. The problem wasn't just with LabVIEW either. Some of my coworkers also had problems installing completely unrelated programs.