isdbg.exe debugger never launches

[morgan]

I wonder what I'm doing wrong. I have InstallShield Professional 2011. I've copied SciLexer.dll, ISDbg.exe and ISDbg.chm from C:\Program Files\InstallShield\2011\System and C:\Program Files\InstallShield\2011\Program\0409 to C:\Windows\System32 on a Windows Server 2008 R2 64-bit Intel Xeon system. I ran "isdbg.exe /REGSERVER" on the 2008 system, and the debugger window popped up, titled something like "no debugger session". On my build machine (32-bit Windows XP) I did F7, "build SINGLE_EXE_IMAGE". I copied the entire installscript project tree over to the 2008 machine. I tried setup.exe /d, setup.exe /d"", setup /d. I tried checking Build -> Settings... -> Generate inline debugging information and re-building. Nothing seems to make a difference; the installation never launches the debugger, the UI just runs as usual.

I searched these forums and found some people with similar problems, but no proposed solution stood out. One respondent suggested also copying isdbgcnv.exe, which doesn't exist in IS 2011.

I searched the registry on Server 2008 for isdbg, and found:

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\TypeLib\{410A053E-BE9C-4EB8-9A72-4AB8D489A52C}\1.0\0\win32 = C:\Windows\SysWow64\ISDbg.exe
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Wow6432Node\CLSID\{92AF8924-588B-4A03-BAF3-0319E83A31F4}\LocalServer32 = C:\Windows\SysWow64\ISDbg.exe
HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Wow6432Node\TypeLib\{410A053E-BE9C-4EB8-9A72-4AB8D489A52C}\1.0\0\win32 = C:\Windows\SysWow64\ISDbg.exe
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\TypeLib\{410A053E-BE9C-4EB8-9A72-4AB8D489A52C}\1.0\0\win32 = C:\Windows\SysWow64\ISDbg.exe
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Wow6432Node\CLSID\{92AF8924-588B-4A03-BAF3-0319E83A31F4}\LocalServer32 = C:\Windows\SysWow64\ISDbg.exe
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Classes\Wow6432Node\TypeLib\{410A053E-BE9C-4EB8-9A72-4AB8D489A52C}\1.0\0\win32 = C:\Windows\SysWow64\ISDbg.exe
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Classes\CLSID\{92AF8924-588B-4A03-BAF3-0319E83A31F4}\LocalServer32 = C:\Windows\SysWow64\ISDbg.exe
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Classes\TypeLib\{410A053E-BE9C-4EB8-9A72-4AB8D489A52C}\1.0\0\win32 = C:\Windows\SysWow64\ISDbg.exe

I tried copying isdbg.exe, isdbg.chm and scilexer.dll to c:\windows\syswow64. Still no debugger.

If I enter 'isdbg' at a command line, it launches, with 'no debugging session'.

Help, please. I am under the gun to get 64-bit changes made for a release, and I need to be able to debug this installer on Server 2008 R2.

Thanks,

Morgan

[morgan]

Anyone?

Morgan

[joshstechnij]

There typically isn't much that will prevent the debugger from launching. As points of troubleshooting, we would recommend trying/verifying the following:
- Can you debug the setup on the machine it was built on?
- Move the debugger files to a non-system path (such as the Desktop folder) and re-register isdbg.exe, then try debugging again.
- Create a new release with the Release Wizard and test that on the remote machine.
- Make sure the setup.dbg file resides on a drive that has the same drive letter designation as the drive the setup was built on (this issue should actually be resolved with IS 2011, but this can be tested to be sure this isn't somehow related to the debugger not launching).

If none of the above tests reveals any useful information, you may try using the Process Monitor utility from SysInternals to monitor setup.exe and isdbg.exe to see if there are any failure points that are occurring that are not immediately obvious.

[rcuadra]

Hi Josh,

Have InstallShield figure out why this is happening? It seems to happen on Windows 2003 R2 and Windows 7 and could possibly Windows 2008. I'm using IS2010 and per your suggestions, to me if I use any other machine that does not have the mapping you mentioned on a machine the debugger might not run, but in my case our build is actually mapped using an E drive but when we try to run it on a windows 2003 (not R2) it actually works but when I try it on my Windows 7 laptop it does not.

I will try the process monitor but wondering if InstallShield has some answers or a workaround for Windows 2003 R2 and Windows 7.

[CHOeld]

I'm experiencing, as best I can tell, identical symptoms to those reported by Morgan earlier. I've run the IS 2011 debugger many times successfully on Windows 2003 and Windows XP (32-bit), but never yet on this 64-bit platform (Windows Server 2008 R2 (x64)). I suspect that it has something to do with the funky way that 32-bit applications get handled in the registry by 64-bit Windows, but I don't know enough to fashion a work-around.

I've also tried building my install with InstallShield 2012, since it advertises better support for 64-bit platforms, but that doesn't seem to work any different or better.

Does anyone know of a workaround for this issue?

[rcuadra]

CHOeld wrote:
I'm experiencing, as best I can tell, identical symptoms to those reported by Morgan earlier. I've run the IS 2011 debugger many times successfully on Windows 2003 and Windows XP (32-bit), but never yet on this 64-bit platform (Windows Server 2008 R2 (x64)). I suspect that it has something to do with the funky way that 32-bit applications get handled in the registry by 64-bit Windows, but I don't know enough to fashion a work-around.

I've also tried building my install with InstallShield 2012, since it advertises better support for 64-bit platforms, but that doesn't seem to work any different or better.

Does anyone know of a workaround for this issue?

I experimented and tried the following and for some reason it works for me, so you can try it and let me know if it works for you as well.

1) Open Computer Management
2) Click Storage and select Disk Management
3) Change the drive letter of your CD drive to another letter, in my case I change it to G: no reason why G, the main thing is to make sure it is not D. So you can try any letter.
4) After this is done relaunch the debugger and see if it works for you. In my testing this works for me 100% everytime I cannot launch the debugger.

[mweintraub]

I too, am having the same issue as above (using IS 2012) on the following setups:

- Windows XP 32 bit VM (Virtual Box) on a Windows 7 64bit host
- Windows 7 32 bit system .

Before a system complete change and IS upgrade I had it working on all O/Ses, but I was using IS 2010 and it was compiled on a Windows XP 32 bit system. (ugh, too many changes at once.)