FileMaker 8.5 Runtime will not start on Windows XP

Hi Group

I have developed a run time solution that I have deployed onto a
Windows XP SP2 PC. The install at the customers went smoothly and
everything seemed to work perfectly. The next day the customer called
stating that the solution will not start. Restarting the PC did not
resolve the issue so Im a bit stumped as to what is wrong.

I mostly develop for Mac so not being experienced as a Windows
developer I may have missed something obvious. I have listed some of
the things I suspect may be causing this problem.

The solution was created on a PC running Windows 2000 SP4 (yes I know,
old, but stable and reliable) with FileMaker Advanced 8.5v2
Should have I created this using Windows XP instead?

The solution uses the FTPit plug-in 1.5.5.0
Are there issues with plug-ins and runtime solutions?

I installed the solution by dragging the solution folder from my
Install CD into the customers My Documents folder.
Should have I placed the solution in the Program Files folder instead?
Or used a Windows installer like Inno Setup from jrsoftware.org/ ?

The first time I launched the solution I double clicked on the .EXE
file as opposed to the .USR file
I understand this is important so the bind key can be set on the
linked .USR files?

The user is not running the PC with admin privileges. (I installed the
solution with these non admin user privileges and it did launch and
worked well during training session and for the rest of the day.)
Is there any reason why a restart could have stopped the solution from
launching?

I will probably end up installing FileMaker Pro as Im up against time
for this project. But for future reference it would be helpful get to
the bottom of this.

Any help much appreciated.

Paul

Re: FileMaker 8.5 Runtime will not start on Windows XP

On Apr 15, 5:50 am, PaulfromUK wrote:
> Hi Group
>
> I have developed a run time solution that I have deployed onto a
> Windows XP SP2 PC. The install at the customers went smoothly and
> everything seemed to work perfectly. The next day the customer called
> stating that the solution will not start. Restarting the PC did not
> resolve the issue so Im a bit stumped as to what is wrong.
>
> I mostly develop for Mac so not being experienced as a Windows
> developer I may have missed something obvious. I have listed some of
> the things I suspect may be causing this problem.
>
> The solution was created on a PC running Windows 2000 SP4 (yes I know,
> old, but stable and reliable) with FileMaker Advanced 8.5v2
> Should have I created this using Windows XP instead?
>
> The solution uses the FTPit plug-in 1.5.5.0
> Are there issues with plug-ins and runtime solutions?
>
> I installed the solution by dragging the solution folder from my
> Install CD into the customers My Documents folder.
> Should have I placed the solution in the Program Files folder instead?
> Or used a Windows installer like Inno Setup from jrsoftware.org/ ?
>
> The first time I launched the solution I double clicked on the .EXE
> file as opposed to the .USR file
> I understand this is important so the bind key can be set on the
> linked .USR files?
>
> The user is not running the PC with admin privileges. (I installed the
> solution with these non admin user privileges and it did launch and
> worked well during training session and for the rest of the day.)
> Is there any reason why a restart could have stopped the solution from
> launching?
>
> I will probably end up installing FileMaker Pro as Im up against time
> for this project. But for future reference it would be helpful get to
> the bottom of this.
>
> Any help much appreciated.
>
> Paul

1) Try it with admin priviledges. I don't expect it to help, but if it
makes a difference, that would be useful information.

2) You say you copied it over from a CD, that often marks files read-
only that shouldn't be. It worked once, so I don't know that its the
issue, but you might want to double check that nothing is read-only.

3) Is the user running the usr or exe? Is there any error message at
all?

-cheers,
Dave

Re: FileMaker 8.5 Runtime will not start on Windows XP

Define better "... will not start"...

Did the app load and then quit, did it not laod at all (double-click and
nothing happens).

There is no reason to use USR... in fact, sometimes other apps use .USR. I
use FP7 or Guy or VXM (for my vessel manager).

On my PC. UST loads word perfect 's database app.

Guy


"PaulfromUK" wrote in message
news:8755a59f-09d2-4497-950f-d80c0646096b@a9g2000prl.googleg roups.com...
> Hi Group
>
> I have developed a run time solution that I have deployed onto a
> Windows XP SP2 PC. The install at the customers went smoothly and
> everything seemed to work perfectly. The next day the customer called
> stating that the solution will not start. Restarting the PC did not
> resolve the issue so Im a bit stumped as to what is wrong.
>
> I mostly develop for Mac so not being experienced as a Windows
> developer I may have missed something obvious. I have listed some of
> the things I suspect may be causing this problem.
>
> The solution was created on a PC running Windows 2000 SP4 (yes I know,
> old, but stable and reliable) with FileMaker Advanced 8.5v2
> Should have I created this using Windows XP instead?
>
> The solution uses the FTPit plug-in 1.5.5.0
> Are there issues with plug-ins and runtime solutions?
>
> I installed the solution by dragging the solution folder from my
> Install CD into the customers My Documents folder.
> Should have I placed the solution in the Program Files folder instead?
> Or used a Windows installer like Inno Setup from jrsoftware.org/ ?
>
> The first time I launched the solution I double clicked on the .EXE
> file as opposed to the .USR file
> I understand this is important so the bind key can be set on the
> linked .USR files?
>
> The user is not running the PC with admin privileges. (I installed the
> solution with these non admin user privileges and it did launch and
> worked well during training session and for the rest of the day.)
> Is there any reason why a restart could have stopped the solution from
> launching?
>
> I will probably end up installing FileMaker Pro as Im up against time
> for this project. But for future reference it would be helpful get to
> the bottom of this.
>
> Any help much appreciated.
>
> Paul
>
>
>
>
>

Re: FileMaker 8.5 Runtime will not start on Windows XP

The user is launching the .exe , I placed a shortcut to it on the
desktop. No error messages occur It just will not start.

With regards to dragging and dropping from a CD is it OK to place .exe
files and all their associated dll's into a folder in the users My
Documents folder? Am I getting problems because Windows only wants to
see .exe files in the Programs Folder? Do some Windows policies
enforce this?

Cheers

Paul


>
> 3) Is the user running the usr or exe? Is there any error message at
> all?
>
> -cheers,
> Dave

Re: FileMaker 8.5 Runtime will not start on Windows XP

It just will not start, the user double clicks on the .exe and nothing
happens. The user did say she gets the hour glass for a split second
but that's it. Im going in there tomorrow to install a full copy of
FMP9 I'll see if I can glean more detail before I do this.

Thanks for the info on extensions, is there an easy to tell what
extensions have been allocated on XP so you can choose one that's
unique and avoid the risk of conflicts? Is it OK just to rename the
filename.USR to filename.FP7 from Windows or would I have to do this
by creating the solution again with FileMaker Advanced?

Thanks

Paul


On Apr 15, 9:06=A0pm, "Guy" wrote:
> Define better "... will not start"...
>
> Did the app load and then quit, did it not laod at all (double-click and
> nothing happens).
>
> There is no reason to use USR... in fact, sometimes other apps use .USR. =
=A0I
> use FP7 or Guy or VXM (for my vessel manager).
>
> On my PC. UST loads word perfect 's database app.
>
> Guy
>

Re: FileMaker 8.5 Runtime will not start on Windows XP

On Apr 16, 2:07 am, PaulfromUK wrote:
> It just will not start, the user double clicks on the .exe and nothing
> happens. The user did say she gets the hour glass for a split second
> but that's it. Im going in there tomorrow to install a full copy of
> FMP9 I'll see if I can glean more detail before I do this.

You can also try just reinstalling the runtime (backup the usr file,
delete the folder, reinstall it, and restore the usr file. (Again
check for read-only attributes if your copying from CD.) If it works,
restart it a couple times to make sure its really ok.

This is what I would do before installing FP.

> Thanks for the info on extensions, is there an easy to tell what
> extensions have been allocated on XP so you can choose one that's
> unique and avoid the risk of conflicts? Is it OK just to rename the
> filename.USR to filename.FP7 from Windows or would I have to do this
> by creating the solution again with FileMaker Advanced?

There are ways, but really that would only show you whats been
allocated today. Tomorrow a new program might come along and pick the
extension you chose. There is always a risk of conflicts. I wouldn't
worry -that- much about it, the default usr is generally fine.

Fp7 is a good choice too. I don't actually know if you can change it,
at the very least you'd need to tell xp to open FP7 with the runtime,
but I don't know if you have to repackage the whole thing with FMA for
it to work.

-cheers,
Dave

Re: FileMaker 8.5 Runtime will not start on Windows XP

you must do any extension changes and name changes at build time.


Guy


"d-42" wrote in message
news:229c9c03-e59b-4d58-a9dc-4317f0f0b67a@t12g2000prg.google groups.com...
> On Apr 16, 2:07 am, PaulfromUK wrote:
>> It just will not start, the user double clicks on the .exe and nothing
>> happens. The user did say she gets the hour glass for a split second
>> but that's it. Im going in there tomorrow to install a full copy of
>> FMP9 I'll see if I can glean more detail before I do this.
>
> You can also try just reinstalling the runtime (backup the usr file,
> delete the folder, reinstall it, and restore the usr file. (Again
> check for read-only attributes if your copying from CD.) If it works,
> restart it a couple times to make sure its really ok.
>
> This is what I would do before installing FP.
>
>> Thanks for the info on extensions, is there an easy to tell what
>> extensions have been allocated on XP so you can choose one that's
>> unique and avoid the risk of conflicts? Is it OK just to rename the
>> filename.USR to filename.FP7 from Windows or would I have to do this
>> by creating the solution again with FileMaker Advanced?
>
> There are ways, but really that would only show you whats been
> allocated today. Tomorrow a new program might come along and pick the
> extension you chose. There is always a risk of conflicts. I wouldn't
> worry -that- much about it, the default usr is generally fine.
>
> Fp7 is a good choice too. I don't actually know if you can change it,
> at the very least you'd need to tell xp to open FP7 with the runtime,
> but I don't know if you have to repackage the whole thing with FMA for
> it to work.
>
> -cheers,
> Dave
>

Re: FileMaker 8.5 Runtime will not start on Windows XP

Its turned out the cause of this problem was the FTPit plug-in. I went
over to my customers yesterday to install FMP 9 but decided to do some
investigation on the runtime beforehand.

When I removed the FTPit plug-in from the extensions folder the
runtime launched every time. When I put the plug-in back it failed to
start. Thinking it may be a corrupt plug-in I downloaded a fresh copy
but the results were the same.

I had no problems with the full install of FMP and the solution work
as intended. I think the lesson I will take from this is be careful
with runtime apps that require plug-ins.

Thanks to d-42 and Guy for help and advice with this.

Paul