sr71_sr71
27th July 2012 09:59 UTC

NSIS Error - Error Launching Installer
Hi Folks.

I am getting this error occurring for various apps (Adobe Shockwave Player for example) on my system, and cannot work out why. The message appears when i try an uninstall either using windows uninstall or the uninstaller manually.

I am running Windows 7 Pro 64bit SP1 (all updates), Firefox (main browser), MS Security Essentials.

I have followed everything I can find on the internet about this error, but nothing has resolved the problem. I have also tried contacting the various software developers, how they say its not their problem and have no suggestions.

Any ideas (other than reinstall my OS) anyone?

Regards.

David.

MSG
27th July 2012 10:50 UTC

As is explained on the wiki page, this NSIS error means that the installer has been changed or is incomplete. The wiki page has a list of possible causes / solutions. But I'm afraid we cannot smell from a distance which particular application / hardware failure / virus / user error is the cause of your problem.

sr71_sr71
27th July 2012 10:55 UTC

Thanks for your reply, I totally understand, however as I say I have tried eveything I could find, including that info on the wiki.

Today I tried to install "nsis-2.46-setup.exe" to see if that might correct things, but even that has the same problem.

For my understanding, would you say this a problem with NSIS or the Windows 7 Installer?

sr71_sr71
27th July 2012 11:23 UTC

Originally posted by MSG
As is explained on the wiki page, this NSIS error means that the installer has been changed or is incomplete. The wiki page has a list of possible causes / solutions. But I'm afraid we cannot smell from a distance which particular application / hardware failure / virus / user error is the cause of your problem.

Afrow UK
27th July 2012 11:47 UTC

Check the permissions on your %TMP% folder. The uninstaller copies and then runs itself from directly under that folder. Also if you have any files under %TMP% named Au_.exe all the way to Zu_.exe then delete them.

Stu

sr71_sr71
27th July 2012 12:07 UTC

Thanks for that, good idea.

I have checked out the permissions, and I did not have any of the file mentioned. But it still fails in the same way.

I also checked the permissions of the program files folders, ensure the windows installer service is running, but this made no difference either. Actually i did notice that windows installer was not actually started and was set to manual, although that seems to be the default, its odd how trying to run the uninstallers does does not start this service.

Should it not start when installing or uninstalling? Does NSIS not use the windows installer, I thought it was simply a wrap (so to speak)?

Afrow UK
27th July 2012 12:11 UTC

NSIS does not use Windows Installer in any way. I'm not sure what gave you that idea :)

Open up command prompt. Can you copy a file into %TMP%? Can you run a program from %TMP%? Something on your system is blocking the uninstaller from doing this.

Stu

sr71_sr71
27th July 2012 12:20 UTC

Must be me going mad, you would not believe how long I have been working on this issue ;-)

So its a seperate installer, like say InstallShield (if i have even got that right) :-)

I just copied a movie into that folder and that played fine, and I also dropped in VirtualDub and run that fine ( as that runs standalone).

One thing I notice in my TMP folder is that each icon has a small gold lock bottom left on each. Also I have 2 folders and some files that are locked somehow, as follows:

Folders:
~nsu.tmp
MarkAny

Files
FXSAPIDebugLogFile.txt
FXSTIFFDebugLogFile.txt

Unless these relate to NSIS, everything seems to run fine.

sr71_sr71
27th July 2012 12:29 UTC

seems I am not the owner of these files and folder structures, just trying to amend that now, as I am an admin account. Even if just to see what in them.

sr71_sr71
27th July 2012 12:39 UTC

MaryAny appears to be linked to my Samsung mobile device software, so will leave that alone. I removed that odd tmp folder, and left the files alone as i think there harmless log files to fax or the like.

Afrow UK
27th July 2012 12:47 UTC

I do not have that locked icon on any of my files. It probably relates to UAC. Have you tried switching UAC off (although I have never had an issue with UAC on maximum).

Stu

sr71_sr71
27th July 2012 13:00 UTC

Yes, I already have UAC off. The locks don't seem to effect anything, they even appear on a new text file i create, edit, and then delete from tmp.

Although odd, and locks don't appear elsewhere, everything seems to access correctly in temp,

sr71_sr71
27th July 2012 13:01 UTC

the locks might be to do with file sharing, and indicates only my user can see them.

sr71_sr71
27th July 2012 13:17 UTC

Ok, just stumbled on a workaround. I was reading through the NSIS userguide and found this section:

3.2.1 Common Options

/NCRC disables the CRC check, unless CRCCheck force was used in the script.
/S runs the installer or uninstaller silently. See section 4.12 for more information.
/D sets the default installation directory ($INSTDIR), overriding InstallDir and InstallDirRegKey. It must be the last parameter used in the command line and must not contain any quotes, even if the path contains spaces. Only absolute paths are supported.

Now, when i create a new shortcut and manually provide the app location, the uninstall works. So I did the following: "C:\Program Files (x86)\NSIS\uninst-nsis.exe" /DC:\Program Files (x86)\NSIS

So me being me, I wanted to look at the registry for the NSIS installer, so I reinstalled to try again, and now "WITHOUT THE /D" everything has started to work again, even the other apps now uninstall fine!

Erm, soooooo, I dont get it ;-) Why (by adding/using "/D" on the NSIS unistaller), did that fix all other apps that had the unistall error????

Even though I hate endings like this, I seem to be all sorted now, but it would be nice to know why.

Afrow UK
27th July 2012 13:21 UTC

/D is only valid for NSIS installers. _?= is used for uninstallers. So that must have been just a coincidence.

Stu

sr71_sr71
27th July 2012 13:24 UTC

The other apps were all NSIS based i think, all other installers worked fine.

But thats all i did on my system, I created that /D shortcut, ran it, and uninstalled NSIS software.

maybe the fix was linked to uninstalling that NSIS package, although I never had that installed previosuly, and only installed today.

sr71_sr71
27th July 2012 13:27 UTC

This all started happening a few months ago, when I first noticed the problem when trying out a trial of "Xilisoft Audio Converter". I tried to install that again just now, and it uninstalls just fine.

AHHHH, whats going on ;-) Excellent news, but whaaaaaaaaaaaaat ;-)

sr71_sr71
27th July 2012 13:37 UTC

Just wanted to say thanks very much for you help on this Stu, it was good to talk this through.

I am off now, many thanks :-)