VS 6 installer Freeze up

[waytech2003]

XP SP3 and MS VS Installer 6.

I am having trouble trying to create an MSI installer package for one of my applications. 8 months ago I used it on this app with no troubles. I even went back to that older version of my VB6 project and it too has troubles now.

I use installer on many programs I create without incident. This is the only one to have troubles. I tried 3 other projects today, and they all create their MSI just fine.

On this project, when I choose Build, it gets as far as "Building 'Name of App'" and just ties up the system.

Task manager shows CPU usage as 99-100% on DEVENV.exe

How can I determine what is causing the hangup?

 

[dilettante]

That product always did have a screwy name. The most recent rendition of the name went something like "Microsoft Visual Studio 6.0 Installer." It was actually a packager for Windows Installer, and ran as a plug-in to the Visual Studio 6.0 IDE.

Are you using version 1.1 of this tool rather than the short-lived 1.0 version?


With that out of the way... I'll admit I'm not sure I have much to offer in terms of actual assistance.

My guess would have to be that VSI is hung trying to get a lock on some file. This could be one of the inputs to VSI (such as the .SLN and other files, your program EXE or its dependencies) or an output from VSI (the output .MSI, etc.).

Is this transient? I.e. does it still happen after fully rebooting the system?

Of course you also mention high CPU utilization. Hmm.

 

[waytech2003]

Yes it is "Microsoft Visual Studio 6.0 Installer." When I look at the Help-About menu, the product details box is empty. In explorer I looked at the DEVENV.EXE info, and it shows version 6.1.88.60 dated 05/09/2000.

What do most folks use to create Setup file, if not MS Installer?

 

[waytech2003]

Is this transient? I.e. does it still happen after fully rebooting the system?

Yes it has the same results even after reboot. Tried creating a new installer pakage, and still the same results.

 

[dilettante]

I use the same thing myself most of the time, but I've never seen this symptom. If it does this after a reboot then it probably isn't related to file or registry locks.

Since you only see it with one application I'd suspect some dependency that is unique in this case. How that would cause this I can't imagine though.

 

[waytech2003]

Thanks for your time.

I'd suspect some dependency that is unique in this case

Thought about that and checked. All references and components are the standard ones I use in most all of my apps. Nothing that is not standard windows stuff.

 

[waytech2003]

Figured it out!

The icon in my Main form was the problem. I noticed that when I was in the "Options" section where you compile the app, the icon was 3-4 time as large as a normal one. I deleted the icon from the app, recompiled, and created a installer MSI with no troubles.

Guess I will work on making a normal sized icon now.

 

[dilettante]

Wow, that sure seems unexpected. Glad you found it!