How to get rid of the 'Flexera Software Customer Community' tab?

[lars123]

I am in the process of migrating from VS2010 to VS2013. I am dependent on a myriad of different Visual Studio setup projects (*.vdproj) that as we all know went down the drain with VS2012. So I have been putting it off for a while - I actually skipped VS2012 because of this.

But now I have bitten the bullet, spent time to understand Installshield LE enough to manually port my setup projects (the new import from vdproj feature in Installshield LE 2013 hadly imports anything), and all is actually progressing quite well and I am able to get by with Install Shield LE.

I do however get very frustrated with the 'Flexera Software Customer Community' page that - following a logic that so far have escaped me - pops up in the document area of VS2013 to offer me links to various explanations on the Flexera site. I *really* don't want this and furthermore this page has a persistent JavaScript error that is intensely annoying.

Does anyone know how stop this 'Flexera Customer Community' tab appearing?

[chiranjeevi]

Hello,

Kindly provide some screenshots of the issue to help resolve the issue.

Regards,
Chiranjeevi

[lars123]

Here are the requested screenshots of the 'Customer Software Customer Community' tab as well as the JavaScript error it generates. Please be aware that resolving the JavaScript error is only my secondary concern. Primarily I want to stop the page from appearing at all.

Thank you

[chiranjeevi]

Hello,

Thank you for providing the screenshots and I am able to reproduce the behavior.

When a build error or warning occur during installshield project build in Visual Studio, all the errors and warnings will be listed in Error window. If you click on any error or warning listed,will take you to the respective flexera software community knowledgebase page in a browser tab in Visual Studio IDE, on which you are getting the mentioned java script error.

When I tried to open the url shown manually in IE 10 browser, I din't see any javascript error.

However, this issue has been notified to our engineering team and will keep you posted the updates at the earliest.

Regards,
Chiranjeevi

[lars123]

Thx for your reply.

I wish to stress the fact, that I am not clicking or touching anything in the Error list tool window of VS2013. The tool window is collapsed at the bottom of the IDE. Nevertheless the Customer Community page launches itself in the document well. Not always, not following any logic I can discern. But it is extremely disruptive.

[lars123]

I can add that the page also - at times - appear when I am building c# class libraries - albeit libraries that are referenced by InstallShield projects in the solution. I do wish for an option somewhere to globally disable the Flexera Software Customer Community Page once and for all.

Thx

[lars123]

I tried to upload a little screen video to illustrate just to which point this behavior is disruptive. But this is not possible in this forum, could you give me some other means of supplying you this video?. The video shows this process:

- Type code (2 - 3 characters is enough)
- Wait for the 'Flexera Software Customer Community' page to load and display the JavaScript error (if ++counter > 10 : Pull some hair out in frustration and try not to swear)
- Close the javascript error dialog
- Close the Flexera page
- Repeat from top to infinity

I stress that I do absolutely nothing apart from what is listed above. At no point is the VS2013 Error List visible and I do not touch anything in this window.

I have this problem in two separate installations, 1 machine running VS2013 Premium and another VS2013. It is disruptive to the point where it renders it impossible to work and I am getting very desperate and annoyed. Am I the only one experiencing this problem?

[lars123]

Please get back to me on this. As stated in earlier post I could send you a screen video that shows the problem

[Chaitra]

Hi,

A work order has been raised for this issue and our engineering team is working on the same.

We shall update you as soon as we hear from them.

Thank you for your understanding and patience.

Regards,
Chaitra

[lars123]

In the meantime, can you please inform me how I can disable the Flexera Software Customer Community page

[lars123]

Do you have any kind of timeline on this.

In the meantime PLEASE inform how to disable the Flexera page

[lars123]

I keep asking you for a way to disable this extremely intrusive Community page you apparently - for some reason entirely beyond me - believe is a must for any developer.

It keeps popping up, totally interrupting my work with its modal JavaScript error dialog that blocks Visual Studio in its entirety until closed. When the Visual Studio background compilation marks syntax errors in my code, this page pops up. In periods this means that the page pops up for EVERY KEYSTROKE. IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO WORK WHEN THIS IS THE CASE !!!! It has got nothing to do with the Error List windows in Visual Studio - the problem persists even when this windows is closed. I have tried deleting the registry key [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\InstallShield\20.0\Professional]\ErrorCentralURLLoc - that didn't do it.

You have replied that you have 'submitted a request with you developer team' - and I have now for WEEKS to absolutely no avail asked you to provide me a way to disable this page while your developers work on the JavaScript error.

I do congratulate you with the fact that you with VS2012 with Microsoft agreed to push out the old vdproj setup projects leaving InstallShield LE as the only in-place alternative. I have even without any grumble gone through the extra work of porting about 20 setup projects to InstallShield LE. Work without any benefit for me mind you because my setup projects worked just fine in the first place.

But I cannot in any way accept this help page that you flout in this way. Why do you believe that - in a world of a gazillion forums - your page is of any interest at all? To me some amateur must have been at work there.

So again: YOU MUST NOW WITHOUT FURTHER DELAY PROVIDE ME WITH A WAY OF STOPPING THIS BEHAVIOR. While I realize I don't have any real sanctions I do appeal to some kind of professional courtesy on your part to a fellow developer spending 70+ hours a week on an extremely tight deadline. And going absolutely crazy solely because of a glaring error on your part.

[Chaitra]

Hi,

I apologize for the delay in response as we could not reproduce the exact issue that you were facing on your machine.

However, I kindly request you to check with few Visual Studio Settings in this context.

Please navigate to Tools->Options->Environment->Startup.

Could you please confirm if you have set the option to "Show Start Page" instead of "Open Home Page"? If you select the former, click OK and restart Visual Studio application, it should show the VS start up page and hence hide the Flexera Community Forum page.

Kindly let me know if you can see any changes after implementing the same, while i shall look into various other settings to help you further.

Thanks,
Chaitra

[lars123]

Thx for your reply. As documented in the attached screenshot, my Startup options are set to 'Show Start Page'. I haven't touched this sp unfortunately it seems unrelated to the problem at hand.

I the total lack of any response from your end I have figured out to set the registry value HLKM\SOFTWARE\InstallShield\20.0\Professional]\ErrorCentralURLLoc to 'about:blank'. While this does not stop the insistent launch of the document tab by your application is does avoid showing your productivity-killing Customer Community Page and its JavaScript Error

[lars123]

Are you actually working on this issue?

[Chaitra]

Hi,

Could you kindly send us your exported VS settings? As we are not able to reproduce the issue you are facing, if you provide us the .vssettings file, it would help us replicate the scenario.

Thanks,
Chaitra

[jcoone]

we have a couple of people having this issue as well, They only have an issue with this window popping up while they have the "error and warning list" window visible while they are working on the code.

[Chaitra]

Hi,

That is right. During the build of code, when Visual Studio application gives a list of errors and warnings in the Error Window, On Click of the error, Flexera Community Page will redirect you to provide more Knowledge base articles related to it.This behaviour has been reproduced.

But the issue here is, without a click on the error list, the Community Page pops up for the customer and hence a vs settings file has been requested to investigate the issue further.

Thanks,
Chaitra

[lars123]

I have been absent for 2 weeks due to a family emergency, sorry.

Exported settings file is attached. I underline that

I experience this issue whether the VS2013 Error list tool window is visible or not
The modal javascript error dialog block the process and appears repeatedly during build of the InstallShield project

[thomas_roach]

I am having the same problem. It is VERY ANNOYING and time-wasting. Please advise how to get rid of this very-unwanted feature. Thanks.

[erik_berg]

Count me in as well for LE2013 and LE2015