%1 is not a valid win32 application

[Tony Proctor]

I seem to have damaged something on one machine, probably in the registry,
that is preventing access to DCOM servers when they have a space in their
paths - unless that path is "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\VB98"
which seems to be treated a little differently. Can anyone help me locate
the cause?

As soon as I try to instantiate one of the classes of such a VB6 ActiveX EXE
project (new or old), then I get the above error, plus an Event Log entry of
1000:

Unable to start a DCOM Server: {137DA12F-A721-45C3-9FD4-D44DE1B9E82A}.
The error:
"C:\AIM Tech\Server\MyExe.exe -Embedding is not a valid Win32
application. "
Happened while starting this command:
C:\AIM Tech\Server\MyExe.exe -Embedding

This was all working until about one week ago. Also, the same projects still
work fine on a separate W2K machine that has an identical directory layout.

If I put quotes around the path in the LocalServer32 sub-key of the CLSID
entry in the registry then it works, but it never needed this before.

If anyone is interested, here's some further background on the symptoms:
http://groups.google.ie/group/micro...6ef1c/9c9f5f4d5fc08cd3?hl=en#9c9f5f4d5fc08cd3

Tony Proctor

 

[Ben Voigt]

I seem to have damaged something on one machine, probably in the registry,
that is preventing access to DCOM servers when they have a space in their
paths - unless that path is "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual
Studio\VB98"
which seems to be treated a little differently. Can anyone help me locate
the cause?

As soon as I try to instantiate one of the classes of such a VB6 ActiveX
EXE
project (new or old), then I get the above error, plus an Event Log entry
of
1000:

Unable to start a DCOM Server: {137DA12F-A721-45C3-9FD4-D44DE1B9E82A}.
The error:
"C:\AIM Tech\Server\MyExe.exe -Embedding is not a valid Win32
application. "
Happened while starting this command:
C:\AIM Tech\Server\MyExe.exe -Embedding

Any other files named "AIM" in C:\ ?

This was all working until about one week ago. Also, the same projects
still
work fine on a separate W2K machine that has an identical directory
layout.

If I put quotes around the path in the LocalServer32 sub-key of the CLSID
entry in the registry then it works, but it never needed this before.

You should never rely on this. See:
http://www.idefense.com/intelligence/vulnerabilities/display.php?id=340

 

[Tony Proctor]

Any other files named "AIM" in C:\ ?
I do have other top-level directories beginning "AIM"<space> Ben. For this
reason I was briefly interested in Q185126
(http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q185126/). However, that applies to NT
rather than W2K, and I believe the problem is now fixed. What I can't
understand is that I haven't consciously changed anything. Both the projects
and the directory layout are identical to what they were before the problem
arose.

You should never rely on this. See:
http://www.idefense.com/intelligence/vulnerabilities/display.php?id=340

Sorry Ben. I can't see the relevance of this post. Are you sure you posted
the right one?

Tony Proctor

 

[Tony Proctor]

I take that back Ben. I catch your drift now. Thanks for the tip!

Sure enough, I looked at my top-level directory on the C: drive and there
was a mysterious 0-length file called "AIM". Heaven knows where that came
from but it was the cause of all my problems.

Many thanks

Tony Proctor

 

[Ben Voigt]

I take that back Ben. I catch your drift now. Thanks for the tip!

Sure enough, I looked at my top-level directory on the C: drive and there
was a mysterious 0-length file called "AIM". Heaven knows where that came
from but it was the cause of all my problems.

I would rather say omitting the quotes and trusting the search mechanism is
the cause of the problems. Without quotes you are vulnerable. If that file
called "C:\AIM" hadn't been zero-length, but executable, *anything* could
have happened.

 

[Tony Proctor]

Unfortunately, the VB6 IDE created that LocalServer32 sub-key, and there's
no direct control over it during the build process. Having read that
article, I agree it's a potentially serious problem Ben

Tony Proctor