Problem installing DSC 8.2.1 module

[RavensFan]

I am trying to install the DSC module for 8.2.1 on my home PC.  I had no problems installing it on my development PC at work overtop of 8.2.  But on my home PC I get the following dialog (in the .png file) after the machine spends a long time (~5 minutes) in its "wait for the installer to initialize" phase.  If I click on the details button, I get additional information as shown in the .txt file.

I went back and uninstalled DSC module for 8.2 and tried again, but get the same results.

Any ideas?

Thanks,

Bill

[Wayne.C]

If I remember right, NI likes to use a directory named *.msi that contains the .mst files.  I suspect that the installer copies the directory to hard drive prior to actual install starting and it sounds like something on your home PC is blocking that copy

 Did you have admin rights when you tried to install?

[RavensFan]

Hi Centerbolt,

It is a WinXP machine and I do have admin rights.  I have never had trouble installing anything before.  And the LV 8.2.1 and LV RT 8.2.1 installed without any errors.

What is kind of strange is that it says correct the .ini and try again.  There is a setup.ini file on the CD which lists those "Portable Configuration.msi files

[Merged]
Path=Bin\merged.bin

[Parts]
MetaUninstaller.msi=
MDFSupport.msi=

.....  other lines

Portable_Configuration.msi=
Portable_Configuration64.msi=

But none of these liness have anything defined.  And if this is the .ini file they refer to, you can't correct it because it is burned on a CD.

If it was a problem with the CD, then I wouldn't have been able to install it on another PC.

So the question is, is there an .ini file stored on the PC that may be corrupted.

I can always try to completely uninstall all of 8.2.1 and 8.2.  But I am trying to avoid that because reinstalling will take hours.

Thank you for your help.

[Wayne.C]

I wonder if those ini entries are undefined because the installer looks at info in the registry from previous installs to define those settings.  It seems to be trying to figure out what language to install.  In this case it seems to be using a bad path.  Have you previously loaded DSC module on this machine before? 

Do you have access to high speed internet connection?  You could try downloading DSC module from NI and see what happens with that install.  Otherwise you might be able to copy contents of distribution CD to PC hard drive and edit .ini file there.

One other thought, have you tried disabling all your antivirus/firewall software?

[RavensFan]

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@centerbolt wrote:

I wonder if those ini entries are undefined because the installer looks at info in the registry from previous installs to define those settings.  It seems to be trying to figure out what language to install.  In this case it seems to be using a bad path.  Have you previously loaded DSC module on this machine before? 

Yes, I had loaded it with 8.0 and 8.2.

Do you have access to high speed internet connection?  You could try downloading DSC module from NI and see what happens with that install.  Otherwise you might be able to copy contents of distribution CD to PC hard drive and edit .ini file there.

I can certainly try downloading this evening when I'm back home.  If I did a copy of the CD to PC to edit the .ini, I wonder what would be the correct entries for the .ini?

One other thought, have you tried disabling all your antivirus/firewall software?

I did not try that, but will.  Since the PC is connected thru DSL, I try to disable antivirus and firewall software as seldom as possible.  With the work PC, I did not disable either, but had no problems.  Of course it is different antivirus software and may have different levels of security.

---

I'll try these things tonight and see if any of them work.

[RavensFan]

Hi Centerbolt,

I discovered the problem.

First, disabling the firewall and antvirus did not help.

Second, I looked for DSC module on NI's website but could only find 8.2 and not 8.2.1 to download.

Third, I looked to copy over the CD to my harddrive.  I opened the directory and saw the Products folder, I decided to look in there.  It seemed very slow to browse.  Finally, I saw the Portable_Configuration folder in there, it took a very long time to try to open, then came up with an error that it was not accessible or else something about "incorrect function".  Some other directories would open, but were slow to do so.  So now I know why the initialization took so long and ultimately failed, Windows had a hard time accessing the folders.  Also, through all of this, the CD drive did not sound like it was spinning up properly.

I moved the CD over to my other drive to try it there in case the problem was with my drive.  I had no problems installing the software from there.  Browsing the folders was reasonably quick.  After installing, I moved it back to the first drive and made sure all smudges were wiped off.  I still had problems.

For whatever reason, that CD had a problem that my primary CD drive was sensitive to.  I've never had problems with other CD's in that drive, or that particular CD in other drives.  What is interesting, looking at the back of the CD, there is a difference in color between the inside and outside that looks kind of like a burned CD-R or CD-RW disc would except in silver rather than blue, and except that be circular, this pattern has kind of a oblong lobe and is oddly shaped.

Anyway, my problem is solved.  I think I have a marginal CD that did not work very well in that one drive, but wasn't a problem in a couple other drives.

Thanks for your help.  It put me down a path that got me the answer.

[Wayne.C]

I'm glad to hear that.  I've seen bad CD's before but never a marginal one.  Kind of scary actually.  Something else to add to my list of things that can go wrong in my world.