Calling New Vista Users

[Programmer]

This is a message for anyone who downloads 8.4.1.5 or above of the program, released on 1 March 2008.

I hope you are enjoying the program!

Previously the program asked to be ran as administrator, and it would appear on the Vista desktop with a shield icon. The only reason it did this was to perform one very simple operation (reading from a public part of the registry), and this only once: the first time that a new user would try to connect to the file exchange. This seemed excessive, so now what the program does is it calls a helper application and it is this which asks for administrative priviliges, and that only on the occasion it needs them.

I have not been able to test this in the normal way, by releasing a beta candidate, because the only people who can test this are first time users, so it is a bit of a live trial. It would be great if any Vista users who download the new version can post back on this thread and let me know if they can connect to the Deck Exchange with no problems.

Cheers
Richard

[WebWeaver]

Hi Richard, I went to download this and I'm only seeing 8.4.1. Is there somewhere special we need to go for the 8.4.1.5 version?

Shari

[WebWeaver]

Ok, I downloaded the one that was there, and it is the 8.4.1.5 version. It isn't working however. I am still being asked for approval, and the deck exchange appears to not be working either.

I won't do any further testing until I hear it is indeed the updated version.

Shari

[Programmer]

Hi Shari

Whether you see all four digits of the version number or just two or three depends on where you look. I think the splash screen shows two or three, but the about box should show you all four.

Odd if the DE has stopped working for you...did you see a prompt to run the helper program when you first tried to connect?

Richard

[WebWeaver]

I'm uninstalling and going to try installing again. I never saw the helper application. I'm going to do a reboot in between the uninstall and reinstall. I did get a message about closing the deck exchange application on the uninstall, which made me wonder if it get uninstalled with the program?

Shari

[Programmer]

Hi Shari, Yes, that should get uninstalled and reinstalled too. How did it go?

[WebWeaver]

Sorry Richard, work got extremely busy and I haven't had time to get back to you. I ran into a problem on the reinstall, so wanted to retry it. I'll try and give it another go sometime today. The error I received was:
"The installer has encountered and unexpected error.... error code: 2869"

If you want the full text I screen printed it.

Shari

[Programmer]

Hi Shari,

I know what you mean, i have been a bit rushed myself. I managed to look at this error code 2869 this afternoon though. It is one I have seen before, that seems to stop some Vista users successfully installing the program. Hopefully i have managed to find a fix for it. I just uploaded a new release which will hopefully install ok for you and other Vista users, it is 8.4.1.6. Then we can look at whether the DE is working OK. Over to you...

Richard

[WebWeaver]

Installed. I was able to access, download and share deck. Test ran successfully. I was able to access and download the deck from my laptop. The version is: 8.4.1.7

I am still being asked about permission.

Shari

[Programmer]

Hi Shari,

When are you being asked for permission - when you run the program or when you try to connect to the DE?

I now have some users giving feedback saying that they are getting errors because Vista doesn't even give them permission to read the contents of their Decks/Readings/Spreads files.

I have to say that Vista is becoming a bit of a nightmare for me. If even such basic operations as that require machine administrator priviliges, I can't really see the benefit of UAC. We might just have to go back to that shield icon on the desktop.

Richard