Problem installing GCA under windows 7

[Celjabba]

Solved (see below)

Summary :
If a patched GCA crash on startup with windows 7, DEP is probably the problem.
Setting an exception for GCA does not always work, workaround below.

Celjabba

[panton41]

I've never had a problem with installing or running GCA on Windows XP 32-bit and 64-bit, Windows Vista 32-bit, Windows 7 32-bit and 64-bit and WINE (with the proper DLLs installed and settings made) under 32-bit and 64-bit Linux of various flavors.

The two big things I would look are are 1) GCA requires a printer to be configured and 2) importing many settings from old installs can lead to strange behaviors.

Another problem that's much more rare could be a software conflict. I've installed that VB6 based programs for school that upon ending the class and uninstalling the programs ended up breaking GCA. That's a problem I couldn't fix at the time since VB6 runtimes are pretty much an "out of the box" install on Windows and they simply didn't offer a way to install stand-alone libraries intended for Windows 2000 users onto a modern 64-bit system.

[Celjabba]

Originally Posted by ciaran_skye

I've never had a problem with installing or running GCA on Windows XP 32-bit and 64-bit, Windows Vista 32-bit, Windows 7 32-bit and 64-bit and WINE (with the proper DLLs installed and settings made) under 32-bit and 64-bit Linux of various flavors.

The two big things I would look are are 1) GCA requires a printer to be configured and 2) importing many settings from old installs can lead to strange behaviors.

Another problem that's much more rare could be a software conflict. I've installed that VB6 based programs for school that upon ending the class and uninstalling the programs ended up breaking GCA. That's a problem I couldn't fix at the time since VB6 runtimes are pretty much an "out of the box" install on Windows and they simply didn't offer a way to install stand-alone libraries intended for Windows 2000 users onto a modern 64-bit system.

-I have a printer configured
-As far as i know, i deleted every copies of gca.ini and in fact every files and folders created by gca between each attempts.

A VB6 conflict is possible, but how can i check for it ?
Could someone here interpret the appcrash report if i posted it ?

Celjabba

[panton41]

Originally Posted by Celjabba

-I have a printer configured
-As far as i know, i deleted every copies of gca.ini and in fact every files and folders created by gca between each attempts.

A VB6 conflict is possible, but how can i check for it ?
Could someone here interpret the appcrash report if i posted it ?

Celjabba

Check under the hidden AppData folder in your User directory. There's a Steve Jackson Games folder in Roaming, I think. If you've gotten that then never mind.

I've never tried for Windows v 64-bit, but see if downloading vb6runtimes helps. You might want to uninstall GCA again before running it since it also installs some of its own packages.

I'm not the GCA programmer or an official support person, but a crashlog might help. If anything it could say what is causing the crash to happen. Actual debug output would be nice, but that's probably not possible.

[Celjabba]

Update : it work IF i disable DEP (Data Execution Prevention) for non-windows program.

I was following the FAQ and setting an exception for GCA - this, in my case, don't work.
Disabling DEP for non-windows executable allow me to update GCA and to run it without trouble.

Of course, disabling security feature is not something I like.

So, i guess my question become : Does someone know a working way to set an DEP exception for GCA under windows 7-64, since the FAQ way does not work for me .

Thanks

Celjabba

[ericbsmith]

Originally Posted by Celjabba

Disabling DEP for non-windows executable allow me to update GCA and to run it without trouble.

Of course, disabling security feature is not something I like.

Note that by default Windows does not enable DEP for all programs, only for Windows Executable. You're not really disabling a security feature here, you're just unable to use an extra security feature which has some compatibility issues (which is why it's not enabled by default). Not that you shouldn't be able to use the feature, but it's not strictly necessary.

Originally Posted by Celjabba

So, i guess my question become : Does someone know a working way to set an DEP exception for GCA under windows 7-64, since the FAQ way does not work for me.

I haven't looked into DEP in a while; I'll see if I can mess around with it later. You should be able to create a specific exception; I know I did it in both XP and Win7 without issue.

[Celjabba]

SOLVED ! Victory.

All hail the mighty google :)

So....

When you set a DEP exception, you actually create a registry entry in

hkey_local_machine\software\microsoft\windowsNT\cu rrentversion\appcompatflags\layers

wich have the .exe path as name and DisableNXShowUI as value.

BUT

If you crashed the application before that, windows in some case create a key with value disableusercallbackexception. Same name, same emplacement.
(apparently, this is a windows attempt to prevent further crash. or it may be linked to compatibility mode. not sure.)
If that key exist, the DEP exception cannot be written, and does not work.
(but appear as valid in the exception list)
Deleting the disableusercallbackexception registry entry and then setting the DEP exception work.

Perhaps this may help someone else ?
If not, any moderator may delete this thread :)

Celjabba