1995-era installshield woes - foreground window never appears
All the installshield stuff in the msvc4 installer seems to work -- except the Data Access Objects installer. When you run it, you get to the first screen with a big blue background, but the foreground window never shows up. It's probably there, but invisible, or something. Alt-tab doesn't help, and the blue background is full-screen, so you can't try moving it out of the way. I have to alt-tab and ^C (why that works, I dunno) to get out. Any suggestions? I'm having trouble figuring out how to track this down; win32 gui problems aren't my forte. I put a bzip2 log of 'wine --debugmsg +file,+exec,+proc,+relay _INS0466._MP' on my web site: http://www.kegel.com/linux/winelog.html#msvc4.dao Thanks, Dan -- Dan Kegel http://www.kegel.com http://counter.li.org/cgi-bin/runscript/display-person.cgi?user=78045
On Sunday 19 January 2003 08:02 pm, Dan Kegel wrote:
Data Access Objects installer. When you run it, you get to the first screen with a big blue background, but the foreground window never shows up. It's probably there, but invisible, or something. Alt-tab doesn't help, and the blue background is full-screen, so you can't
hehe, seen a few of those. Too bad wine emulates that business so nicely :)
try moving it out of the way. I have to alt-tab and ^C (why that works, I dunno)
Alt tab puts your terminal program in the "foreground". Unfortunately, the blue usurper is full-screen-sized and "always on top" so you don't see anything. ^C now breaks out of wine, killing the program at the console.
to get out.
I don't have a fix for the fundamental problem, but I do know some workarounds: from a system-administration perspective, you can download one of the MDAC redistributables, and try to get it to install after you are done. This, I think, will put DAO into your filesystem & registry to some extent. There is also another trick that works under gnome and kde (at least), with default setups: hold down the alt key, position the mouse over the cursed blue usurper (i.e., anywhere) and hold the left mouse button to "drag and drop" the usurper out of your way. "managed" mode might help with this problem as well. Won't fix wine, but will give you your computer back without killing off the debugger. -- gmt "Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom." --Albert Einstein
Greg Turner wrote:
On Sunday 19 January 2003 08:02 pm, Dan Kegel wrote:
Data Access Objects installer. When you run it, you get to the first screen with a big blue background, but the foreground window never shows up. It's probably there, but invisible, or something. Alt-tab doesn't help, and the blue background is full-screen, so you can't
hehe, seen a few of those. Too bad wine emulates that business so nicely :)
No, the installer works fine on Windows. Wine isn't emulating very well here.
I don't have a fix for the fundamental problem, but I do know some workarounds: from a system-administration perspective, you can download one of the MDAC redistributables, and try to get it to install after you are done. This, I think, will put DAO into your filesystem & registry to some extent.
That'd help if I actually wanted to use DAO :-) Unfortunately, I'm simply focused on making the msvc4 installer work nicely under wine.
... "managed" mode might help with this problem as well.
Aha! .wine/config had managed=Y. Switching it to managed=N made the dialog box show up properly! OK, this has to be a bug in wine, doesn't it? Got any tips on how to continue tracking this down? (I suppose I could try seeing if Wine has been able to do this in the past, and binary search cvs until I find out what broke it... hmm, didn't work back in 20020605. Not sure it's worth searching back further.) My wife keeps rolling her eyes when I tell her I'm on a quest to get msvc4's installer working smoothly under wine, but it sounds like a reasonable quest to me :-) - Dan -- Dan Kegel http://www.kegel.com http://counter.li.org/cgi-bin/runscript/display-person.cgi?user=78045
On Sun, 19 Jan 2003, Dan Kegel wrote: [...]
... "managed" mode might help with this problem as well.
Aha! .wine/config had managed=Y. Switching it to managed=N made the dialog box show up properly!
OK, this has to be a bug in wine, doesn't it?
Not really. I believe this is a typical case of 'unmanaged windows go on top'. Let me explain. That big blue window is most probably handled by Wine as an unmanaged X window because it should not have the regular window decorations or something like that. The problem is that some window managers (e.g. the KDE WM) systematically put such windows on top of regular managed windows. So when Wine then creates the installer dialog, a regular managed X window, it is hidden by that big blue window. Furthermore these window managers often make it hard to bring the managed windows on top. So the 'fix' is to get Wine to treat all windows as managed windows... and tell the window manager not to give them decorations. This has been discussed before and I believe it is in Alexandre's todo-list. But this stuff is pretty complex so it may take some time... So in the meantime the solution is to either use Managed=N or Desktop="800x600". Desktop="800x600" is pretty nice for installers, especially if you put it in an executable-specific section, typically one with the name of the installer. But desktop mode does not work very well either (new processes get out of the desktop). Oh, well... -- Francois Gouget fgouget(a)free.fr http://fgouget.free.fr/ The nice thing about meditation is that it makes doing nothing quite respectable -- Paul Dean
On Sunday 19 January 2003 09:39 pm, Francois Gouget wrote:
On Sun, 19 Jan 2003, Dan Kegel wrote:
Aha! .wine/config had managed=Y. Switching it to managed=N made the dialog box show up properly!
hmm, so I get the impression it still doesn't work for you?
OK, this has to be a bug in wine, doesn't it?
Not really. I believe this is a typical case of 'unmanaged windows go on top'. Let me explain.
That big blue window is most probably handled by Wine as an unmanaged X window because it should not have the regular window decorations or something like that. The problem is that some window managers (e.g. the KDE WM) systematically put such windows on top of regular managed windows. So when Wine then creates the installer dialog, a regular managed X window, it is hidden by that big blue window. Furthermore these window managers often make it hard to bring the managed windows on top.
So the 'fix' is to get Wine to treat all windows as managed windows... and tell the window manager not to give them decorations. This has been discussed before and I believe it is in Alexandre's todo-list. But this stuff is pretty complex so it may take some time...
So in the meantime the solution is to either use Managed=N or Desktop="800x600". Desktop="800x600" is pretty nice for installers, especially if you put it in an executable-specific section, typically one with the name of the installer. But desktop mode does not work very well either (new processes get out of the desktop). Oh, well...
I'm not sure that doesn't qualify as a bug in my book... I think you are right to point out that it may not be easy to fix properly. But even if its a feature, it's a confusing one. Presumably, your install is still failing, Dan? Now that you have the blue screen usurper taken care of, does winedbg speak to you? -- gmt "Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom." --Albert Einstein
Greg Turner wrote:
I'm not sure that doesn't qualify as a bug in my book... I think you are right to point out that it may not be easy to fix properly. But even if its a feature, it's a confusing one.
Yep, IMHO it's a bug. I guess the Wine FAQ should have an entry Q. I'm trying to install something. The first thing that shows up is a dialog box saying "Setup is preparing the InstallShield wizard...", then I just get a big blue screen with the name of the product in the background, and it sits there forever. A. Try editing ~/.wine/config and change the line that says Managed = "Y" to Managed = "N" That works around a problem where Wine gets the Z-order of some windows wrong. This problem will eventually be fixed.
Presumably, your install is still failing, Dan? Now that you have the blue screen usurper taken care of, does winedbg speak to you?
Nah, the DAO install went fine after that. I guess I'll move on to the next issue, the MFC migration kit install, since fixing this bug appears to be beyond my skill level for the moment. Say, does anyone know what bug # this is in the bug database? I had trouble searching just now... - Dan -- Dan Kegel http://www.kegel.com http://counter.li.org/cgi-bin/runscript/display-person.cgi?user=78045
On Sun, Jan 19, 2003 at 06:02:31PM -0800, Dan Kegel wrote:
All the installshield stuff in the msvc4 installer seems to work -- except the Data Access Objects installer. When you run it, you get to the first screen with a big blue background, but the foreground window never shows up. It's probably there, but invisible, or something. Alt-tab doesn't help, and the blue background is full-screen, so you can't try moving it out of the way. I have to alt-tab and ^C (why that works, I dunno) to get out.
Any suggestions? I'm having trouble figuring out how to track this down; win32 gui problems aren't my forte.
Catch them in a desktop window for now: Ciao, Marcus Index: documentation/samples/config =================================================================== RCS file: /home/wine/wine/documentation/samples/config,v retrieving revision 1.37 diff -u -u -r1.37 config --- documentation/samples/config 13 Dec 2002 02:26:18 -0000 1.37 +++ documentation/samples/config 20 Jan 2003 06:37:18 -0000 @@ -277,6 +277,20 @@ ;"UseDnsComputerName" = "N" ;; sample AppDefaults entries + +; 3 InstallShield versions who like to put their full screen window in front, +; without any chance to switch to another X11 application. +; So just catch them in a desktop window. + +[AppDefaults\\_INS5576._MP\\x11drv] +"Desktop" = "640x480" + +[AppDefaults\\_INS5176._MP\\x11drv] +"Desktop" = "640x480" + +[AppDefaults\\_INS0466._MP\\x11drv] +"Desktop" = "640x480" + ;[AppDefaults\\iexplore.exe\\DllOverrides] ;"shlwapi" = "native" ;"rpcrt4" = "native"
Marcus Meissner wrote:
Catch them in a desktop window for now: ... --- documentation/samples/config 13 Dec 2002 02:26:18 -0000 1.37 +++ documentation/samples/config 20 Jan 2003 06:37:18 -0000 @@ -277,6 +277,20 @@ ;"UseDnsComputerName" = "N"
;; sample AppDefaults entries + +; 3 InstallShield versions who like to put their full screen window in front, +; without any chance to switch to another X11 application. +; So just catch them in a desktop window. + +[AppDefaults\\_INS5576._MP\\x11drv] +"Desktop" = "640x480" ...
Wow, that works wonderfully; applying that patch and doing a fresh tools/wineinstall yields a Wine that runs the installer properly. If the executables that we mishandle like this really do tend to have just those three filenames, this seems like a great workaround. Can you submit that to wine-patches? Thanks, Dan -- Dan Kegel http://www.kegel.com http://counter.li.org/cgi-bin/runscript/display-person.cgi?user=78045
participants (4)
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Dan Kegel -
Francois Gouget -
Greg Turner -
Marcus Meissner