InstallShield Setup.exe never shows user interface
I have a program that was packaged with InstallShield that I am trying to install. When I launch Setup.exe, nothing happens. The process hangs out in Task Manager and I can kill it, but the actual install wizard never comes up no matter how long I leave it sitting there.
I have 6 identically configured computers that I need to install this on. I know the source is good because I successfully installed it on one of them right off the bat. On another one, I got this behavior, but after running some updates and rebooting a couple times, it started working. I am trying to install it on a 3rd machine, and I can't get it to work at all. On a 4th computer it came up after a few tries, but I stupidly cancelled it and now it won't work there either.
There are no events logged in the Event Viewer, and no logs are being generated in \Windows\Temp or \AppData\Local\Temp. Thinking there was something wrong with the image that was used on these 6, I tried it on a computer that already has this software installed, and oddly I get the same behavior. The uninstaller from Add/Remove programs won't run either (same setup.exe file). Aside from this there is nothing wrong with these computers at all. The process also doesn't appear to be doing anything either (no HD access and no CPU time being consumed).
All the computers in question are Win7 machines. I tried it on a couple Win10 computers and it works fine (with a shot delay). The software is from 2012 though, so it's not an OS compatibility thing (Win7 was the OS it was designed for).
I have seen this before with InstallShield installers (most notably when removing crapware from HP computers) where the Setup.exe process is doing work in the background but not displaying a window to the user. But they eventually come up with something.
How do I even begin to troubleshoot this? Is there a debug or verbose logging mode for InstallShield packages?
1 Answer
There is a debug command-line switch. The syntax is:
Setup.exe /debuglog"C:\PathToSetupLogFile\setup.log"Note as in the example above, you should not have any spaces between the /debuglog switch and the quoted fully-qualified log file name.
Warning: This particular log file isn't intuitive to read, but here's hoping that it can shed some light on what's happening for you.
