I used to read windowsupdate.log file to troubleshoot issues on Windows Update process. In that file I could check when cab file was not signed or WUA was not running or not properly installed or if the system was using the Windows Update process or a third party tool. But starting with Windows 2016 the windowsupdate.log file was replaced by ETW (Event Tracing for Windows) as commented in this link http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=518345
The link also explains how to use a PowerShell script to convert ETW file in readable files. But the point is that even these "readable files" I cannot find how to extract the same information I got in the old windowsupdate.log file. The resulting file only provides a list of GUID files that I suppose the installed files.
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Hi DocuSign CLM geeks and the DocuSign API in-house team-
Our team will be using DocuSign CLM with the DocuSign Edit add-on to easily open Microsoft Word files and save back to CLM.
We'd like to include the installation of DocuSign Edit in our Silent Mode installation configuration. We're hoping there's an msi File available for the DocuSign Edit extension? If so, please link!
Plan B- If we were to make our own msi from the available exe, does anyone have a trail stomped out for doing this? (a blog post, documentation, step by step, video demo, even a horror story)
Thanks for tips.
https://tools.springcm.com/sites/default/files/apps/docusign-edit-pc-2.01.00.exe
This is an exe that is built from an MSI, so it is an MSI.
If you want to get the MSI out of this https://www.codetwo.com/kb/msi-from-exe/:
The first method is based on the fact that most installers extract their .msi files to the temporary files folder during the installation process. To extract an MSI file from an EXE installer, you need to:
Launch your .exe file.
When you see the first prompt (e.g. a question about whether you want to continue installation, accept a license agreement, etc.), do not click anything in this window and do not close it.
Open Windows Explorer, type %temp% in the address bar and press Enter.
Sort the files in the folder by the modification date. The newest file on the list should be the .msi file you are looking for.
Copy the MSI file to a safe location before you close the installer prompt window (see step 2). Be aware that if you close the installer window, the MSI file will be immediately deleted from the temporary files folder.
The second method uses a free third-party tool called 7-Zip to browse the content of the .exe installer file. Follow the steps below.
Download 7-Zip from this page and install it.
Right-click on the .exe file (from which you want to extract an .msi file) and from the shortcut menu choose 7-Zip > Open Archive.
Do not extract any files yet. Instead, browse and look for the folder MSI within the contents. It might take some time to find this folder because it is not always located directly in the root directory (its location may vary depending on the installer).
When you locate the MSI folder, you will notice that it most likely does not contain any .msi files, but a file or files with no extensions and rather cryptic names such as 132. Despite these misleading names, these are actually the MSI files you are looking for.
Drag and drop these files to any desired folder or select them and extract them with 7-Zip. Close 7-Zip after that.
Change the names of the extracted files so that they include the .msi extension.
If there are two files, the larger one is the 64-bit installer, and the smaller one is the 32-bit version. Use the one you need.
Finally, if you want to tweak an MSI, you can use the Orca tool by Microsoft - https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/msi/orca-exe
I created some custom modules and Visual Studio drops the build files directly into the Kofax Bin directory. It is important to note that I'm using the modules as Winforms applications and Windows services (at the same time). The generated files are
MyModule.exe
MyModule.exe.config
MyModule.InstallLog
MyModule.InstallState
MyModule.pdb
I think that I only need the .exe file here. Of course I also add the .aex file to the directory to install the module. I also created two batch files to register the module on the local machine
RegAscEx.exe MyModule.aex
pause
and to install the module as a Windows service
"C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\installutil.exe" "%~dp0MyModule.exe"
pause
after running them as administrator I can delete them from the directory of course. I would like to know if it should be always fine to provide the .exe file, .aex file and the two batch files (which will be deleted later) only?
Basically correct. Some thoughts:
Build your application using the Release configuration (vs Debug). See discussion here.
PDB files usually are not needed in production. Still, you may want to generate and keep them if you plan on debugging in production.
The app.config file should be kept. Maybe you want to use application settings later on, and the supportedRuntime element is useful if someone wants to run your CM on a machine without that version of .NET framework being present (Windows will show a nice error message)
Keep the AEX file. This is required if someone wants to register your CM on another machine (e.g. deploying from DEV > TEST > PROD).
Include a single batch file that allows registering your CM on a new machine as well as adding it to Kofax Capture. Here's an example:
rem "C:\Windows\Microsoft.NET\Framework\v4.0.30319\RegAsm.exe" SmartCAP.CM.Sample.dll /codebase /tlb:SmartCAP.CM.Sample.tlb
rem RegAscSc.exe /f Register.inf
Another thing I usually include is the ability to install my CM in a similar fashion to native KC modules, for example: SmartCAP.CM.Sample.exe -install and SmartCAP.CM.Sample.exe -uninstall. Take a look at the AssemblyInstaller class for details.
I want to verify if certain exe files already exist in a merge module .ism (binary format). Is there a method of doing this without using InstallShield?
An *.ism file is really an MSI file with a changed extension. MSI files in turn are SQL databases stored as COM-structured storage files - a file system inside a single file with file streams for various content. This is the same format used in Office documents.
You can view MSI files with Orca from the Windows SDK: http://www.hass.de/content/how-install-microsoft-orca
Windows Installer XML (WiX) Deployment Tools Foundation (DTF) has an InstallPackage class available that exposes a FindFiles() method. This should be really easy to query the EXE. Just realize that being a merge module you won't know the full installation path as that's decided by the MSI generally.
Both of Chris's suggestions should work fine, as would using Orca. But it got me thinking there might be an even easier way using a tool called Merge Module Finder. It all depends on what you really want to do? Find files already in merge modules? Investigate what merge modules are in an Installshield file? It is not quite clear exactly what you want to do.
Though a bit clunky at times (I think the author hasn't updated it for the latest versions of Windows) it will help you look for a file in a bunch of merge modules interactively. You can also search for a registry value. Here is a screenshot:
I have developed an application in Visual Basic.net. When I install this application to a ProgramFiles/[Appname] folder, and I create a file that is saved in the same folder (a settings file, created from in the application), the file is not visible, yet the application can still read it.
Where is this file saved?
On Windows Vista and higher, writing to the Program Files directory requires administrative privileges. Your file is probably being affected by virtualization (a redirection of the write operation) to the virtual store. You can find it (in Windows 7) in C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\VirtualStore.
The obvious solution is not to try to save the settings in the wrong location in the first place. Your app should create a folder under %APPDATA%, and write it's settings there instead. This answer to a related question can provide some links that might help.
I have an VC++ exe in Remote (customer end).They are repoterd that crashing has occurred.How to identify the problem cause without using the source code and i want to use only .pdb file to analyse .Please tell me how to use .pdb file for debugging.
As a first step get the crash dump using WIndbg or DebugDiag
Please check with customer whether it is ok to install any of the above mentioned tools and get the dump.
Ask thecustomer to send the dump for the crash of the particular exe that you are saying is crashing.
Next analyse the dump file using windbg or debugdiag in your machine using the right pdb.
please tell if any more information is required.
Minimal help for analysing the dump will be given in the help files of windbg or debugdiag itself.
You can also open dump and mini dump files in Visual Studio as well (Open them with Open Project... and point at the dmp file.) If you have pdb files that is properly indexed, you can often get a proper call stack that will point you to where the error occurred.
You should also check out Windows Error Reporting. If this is commercially available software, I suggest you sign your binary files before deployment. You can then ask the customers to submit errors to Microsoft through their standard Windows Error Reporting Service.
On the other side, you can sign up on their WER portal and identity yourself with the certificate you signed the binaries with. From the portal you can get error statistics and download specific dump files.
If the software runs in an isolated environment - a private domain, you can push out a custom global policy in your active directory, that configures WER to submit dump files to a specific Windows share in your domain where the developers can collect them.
Hope this helps,
--larsw
Here are the initial steps to follow:
On the customer machine:
a. install windbg. this can be downloaded from the microsoft website.
b. once installed register the just in time debugger [windbg -l].
c. execute the application which is causing the crash.
d. the windbg will automatically open up when there is a crash.
e. save the dump file.
On your machine:
a. open the crash dump using windbg.
b. set the pdb files and source files on your machine in windbg.
c. You can generate pdb's using the project properties in visual studio.
More details I found in: http://kmdarshan.com/blog/2011/06/29/windows-debugging-using-windbg/