Uninstalling CVI 9.0 Causes Issues with Non-NI Software...

[nickb]

Hello Noxious,

I just wanted to give you an update on your specific situation.  I think that the issue with National Instruments software you are seeing may be directly related to this KB:

All NI Software Requiring Activation Fails to Start After Installing New Software

I'm hoping the steps outlined in that KB should take care of the NI software issue for you.  Please let me know if it does not.  I have also almost finished running all of my installations, and will hopefully be able to reproduce some what you guys have reported.  

Thanks for your patience,

NickB

National Instruments 

[ttorfs]

Hello,

I have the exact same problem the other posters here mentioned. I had CVI 9.0 installed on my PC (Windows XP SP2). I uninstalled it and then installed 8.0. Now I have the following problems:

- Microsoft Visual C++ does not want to debug anymore, it gives an error that coloader80.dll is not loaded; manually loading this dll as suggested does not make a difference.

- Internet Explorer crashes shortly after start-up (fortunately Mozilla Firefox still works)

I tried re-installing CVI 9.0, but this does not solve the problem.

If I don't find out how to fix this problem soon, I will have to ask our IT department to wipe the computer clean and re-install all my software, but I'd prefer to avoid that if at all possible.

regards,

Tom 

[nickb]

Hello All,

I just wanted to update you on the status of my testing.  I have thus far been unable to reproduce the behavior that has been reported.  I have asked a couple more people to assist in this testing, and hopefully we can find a computer that reproduces.

In the meantime, Tom, could you please provide detailed answers to the 4 questions that I asked previously?  Also, do you have any anti-virus software installed, and if so, is it working correctly?

I will post an update as soon as I have more information.

NickB

National Instruments 

[ttorfs]

Hello Nick,

We are using McAfee for anti-virus software and it seems to work still fine as far as I can tell.

1:  What OS?

Windows XP Professional SP2

2: Exact order of installation - as closely as you can remember (including all affected non-NI software)

3: Exact NI software present before installation of CVI 9.0

4: Method by which software was installed and uninstalled

- new PC with Windows XP (only a few months old); Internet Explorer is now version 7 (not sure if this came pre-installed or was auto-updated immediately)

- installation of Microsoft Visual Studio 2005

- installation of NI 488.2 (not sure what version, help file says "June 2005 Edition, Part Number 370003G-01")

- installation of NI-DAQ 8.7.2

- installation of NI LabWindows/CVI 9.0 FDS (evaluation version downloaded from NI website)

- uninstall NI LabWindows/CVI 9.0 through Control panel -> Add/remove programs

  (I seem to remember it asked me somehow whether to remove Visual Studio plugins also but don't remember for sure if I said yes or no to that)

- installation of NI LabWindows/CVI 8.0.1 FDS from official installation CD's

==> Problems occur:

* Microsoft Visual Studio gives me the following error when trying to debug: " A Visual Studio DLL, coloader80.dll, is not correctly installed. Please repair your Visual Studio installation via Add/Remove Programs in Control Panel. If the problem persists, you can manually register coloader80.dll from the command prompt with regsvr32 %CommonProgramFIles%\Microsoft Shared\VS7Debug\coloader80.dll". I tried the latter and it reports success but the error remains.

* Internet Explorer freezes right after start-up; I can still type stuff into the address bar and search bar, but the rest of the browser, including menus, don't work anymore; I have to kill it with the task manager. 

-  re-installation of NI LabWindows/CVI 9.0 evaluation version: doesn't fix the problems

regards,

Tom 

[nickb]

Hello All,

To update everyone, I have been able to successfully reproduce the issue you have described.  The issue appears to lie in installing the CVI 9.0 Interface to the Win32 API, and then subsequently uninstalling it.  Upon uninstallation of the Interface to the Win32 API, the machine is left in a bad state.  While we haven't fully characterized the issue yet, we are quite confident that reinstalling CVI 9.0 (ensuring that you also reinstall the Interface to the Win32 API - by default it is not selected, see the screenshot below) should clear up any issues you were seeing.  

 

We are also currently putting together a patch that should return the machine to a normal state without reinstalling CVI 9.0, and I should hopefully have that by tomorrow.   Also, according to our testing, this issue should not affect you if you are on a Vista OS, or if you have not installed the Interface to the Win32 API.  Please let me know if there are any questions, or if reinstalling does not fix the issue for those who try.

Thank you, and once again, we're sorry for the inconvenience,

NickB

National Instruments 

Message Edited by nickb on 03-03-2009 03:10 PM

[nickb]

After further investigation, this issue is caused by an installer bug when uninstalling the Win32 API.  When CVI is uninstalled, some important registry keys are modified, and this is what is leaving other programs (IE, Visual Studio) in a bad state.  In order to resolve this issue on your machine without reinstalling CVI 9.0 (reinstalling should also work, see my previous post), please download the attached .zip file, extract the Win32APIFix.reg file, and then right-click on it and select merge.  You will be prompted with a warning dialog asking if you are sure you want to continue.  After selecting Yes, the registry file will restore the affected keys to a good state.

Once again, this issue should only occur on an XP or Win 2000 machine which installed CVI 9.0 with the Interface to the Win32 API, and then uninstalled.  No one else should be affected.

This issue will be addressed for future versions of CVI.

NickB

National Instruments