Can't install any applications!

  • Thread starter Thread starter Guest
  • Start date Start date
G

Guest

Hey all, this has been driving me crazy, and I'm about to start crying.

It seems that I'm unable to install *any* third party application on my new
Windows Vista Home Premium installation. Firefox, Thunderbird, Nvidia
drivers, VNC, any .exe file that tries to install an application fails with a
generic error message:

"firefox has stopped working - A problem caused the program to stop working
correctly..."

Looking in the Event Log shows:

"Faulting application Firefox Setup 2.0.0.2.exe ... faulting module
ntdll.dll .... "

I've activated my install, restarted the machine a million times, looked
everywhere on the 'net, I've even reinstalled the OS several times, trying
upgrades vs. clean installs, vs. 30 day trials. I've updated the system (the
updates seem to apply fine). All hardware seems to be recognized fine in the
Device Manager... My xbox 360 connects just fine as an Extender... I just
can't seem to install any new programs! :(

My machine is a run of the mill Dell Dimension 4700.

Any help or pointers at all will be much appreciated!
 
You could try this. Right-click on the setup file, say the Firefox Setup
file, choose Properties, and click on the "Unblock" button (Apply, OK).
Then, right-click,on that same file again, and this time choose Run as
Administrator.
 
Bummer. I'm assuming, after doing the "Unblock", that you right-clicked on
that same file again, and chose Run as Administrator. Try this. Open
Command Prompt, by right-clicking it, choosing Run as Administrator, and
copy and paste this:

sfc /scannow

The System File Checker checks all the current system files and
can restore the cached approved copies. I'm not sure this will work, but it
might be worth a try. For
more information regarding the System File Checker with Vista, see:

http://vistasupport.mvps.org/system_file_checker.htm
 
That seemed very promising... but, no luck. The scan completed, with:

"Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations."

Anything else I can try? I'm even ready to try a reinstall of the OS, if
there's an interesting twist to the install that I can try (I've already
reinstalled four times, at this point).
 
It's so odd that you can run programs (.exe types) but not installer
programs (.exe types or .msi types, I assume). It seems something's running
interference, incorrectly, either not allowing the files to be expanded, or
letting items be written to the registry, or both, and balling up the works
by malfunctioning. Try this, if you haven't done so. Open the start menu,
and click on your User picture. When the User Accounts window pops up,
click on "Turn User Account Control On or Off". If it's off, turn it on.
If it's on, turn it off. They try installing again, using the "Run as
Administrator" right-click.
 
Is it possible that the extension has been associated with an incorrect
opening function? Since you say you have installed it several times, is it
possible you are doing something early after the install that is resetting
your .exe extensions. There are other postings and a KB article related to
resetting .exe if it gets improperly associated.
 
His .exe associations seem okay, since he was able to run cmd.exe, IE7 to
download the installers, and Media Center was mentioned. I don't think it's
an association problem.
 
Yeah, it's not a file association problem (as far as I can tell).

I had previously tried turning UAC on and off, but the behavior was the same
(well, without the "Allow" dialog, but it still faulted).

Now, here's a wrinkle for you. I thought perhaps it was something with the
installer being downloaded with IE. On my Mac I downloaded the same Firefox
installer to a USB drive and then copied the installer over to the Vista
machine. I copied the installer from the USB drive to the desktop and ran
it.... and, sure enough, it ran and installed fine.

I checked the file sizes of the two installers, and they are identical. I
haven't yet tried to compare md5 checksums for the two files, though.

So, looks like I've narrowed it down. Files downloaded with IE cannot be
installed. Now that firefox is installed, I'll try downloading an installer
with that, and see if it works.
 
dean-dean said:
His .exe associations seem okay, since he was able to run cmd.exe, IE7
to download the installers, and Media Center was mentioned. I don't
think it's an association problem.
Click to expand...

I googled ntdll.dll and found tons of stuff, but I'm not sure any of it
is relevant here.

Two responses sounded interesting -- one stating that a faulty memory
module was the problem, and the other said that exempting the crashing
program from Data Execution Prevention fixed it.

Now, exempting anything from a security feature is not a real solution
to any problem, but I thought this might be interesting to try as a
one-time experiment. Just substitute e.g. the Firefox setup executable
for 'explorer.exe' in the instructions I've cut-and-pasted below:

1.click the Start button at the bottom left of your screen
2.click the Control Panel menu item
3.then double-click the System icon.
4.Click the Advanced tab
5.Find the item marked Performance right under there is a button that
says Settings.
6.Click the Data Execution Prevention tab.
7.You'll see two options in that window click the second option that
says "Turn on DEP for all programs and services except those I select."
8. When you are finished with that then click the 'add...' button it
should be visable at the bottom of the box. then you have to find where
the file 'explorer.exe' resides on your computer most of the time it's
something like this c:\windows\explorer.exe anyway add explorer to that
list. It'll give you a warning just ignore it and click ok. Then you
reboot and if you try it everything should work just fine.
 
Well, this is very interesting. And a little bit of good news for you. I
guess download from Firefox in the interim. What IE7 does is stamp, or
"block", a file until it's unblocked in the file's properties. If the file
is blocked when you click on it, it will show a warning dialog, and also put
a "Block" stamp on any files it spawns. The same is true for .zip files,
for example. A blocked .zip file will have blocked files when extracted.
An unblocked .zip file will not have blocked extracted files (the behavior
in XP is slightly different). But that shouldn't keep the installer from
installing, and I haven't figured out why you're having this problem. Their
shouldn't be any crashing going on (Faulting application..., etc.). Don's
post about DEP warrants some investigation, too, but if DEP were invoked,
you should be seeing a clear dialog to that fact. Hmmm......
 
You must have set your IE up to block your files, I have IE7 on XP86, XP64
and Vista64 and have downloaded at least 100 .exe and .msi files and have
never had a blocked file using default settings.
 
No luck. I tried the following, but it still exhibited the same
behavior.

I tested downloading a file with Firefox, and the downloaded file
*will* install. However, I'm still having trouble installing some
items, and I believe the underlying problem with IE is causing these
other issues. Some examples:

- Yahoo Music Jukebox, the installer is tiny, and goes and retrieves
the "real" installer... I think it must use the IE subsystem for
downloading it, and that installer is blocked, so the installer fails.

- Updated NVidia drivers all fail to install. The WHQL version does
show me the Terms and Conditions to agree to, but after that I'm told
that the executable is corrupt and to go and try and download it
again. The beta, non-WHQL version doesn't execute at all, and gives an
invalid memory access error... perhaps that points to my having a back
memory module? I kind of doubt that, but maybe that's because I'm a
software engineer, and inherently mistrust software as a result ;)

Any other ideas? Does the above shed any more light? Perhaps waiting
for Vista SP1 really would have been best, but Vista's MCE is so
pretty! ;)
 
Since IE works for virtually everyone else, you need to consider things on
your computer which might be causing a problem. Two that come to mind are
your anti-virus and your firewall. Since their hooks into the various
browsers are different, that might explain the variables in your results.
Since nVidia suggests that you turn off the anti-virus when installing their
drivers, they must have had some problem in the past with an A/V product. I
never have. If you are on a site you trust, turn off your A/V and see if
the problem goes away.
 
I do not yet have any third-party anti-virus software installed. Nor
do I have any different firewall setup other than the standard,
default Vista install.

In the firewall case, even if the NVidia software is copied over from
a usb disk, it still gives an error.

I don't at all doubt that it's the Vista security subsystem getting in
the way... that's exactly what I'm hoping to try and get to the bottom
of. Since I don't have any third-party apps installed, something fishy
with the OS seems to be going on. :(
 
Josh,
Time for some hardware diagnostics. Download and run Memtest86 (free) to
thoroughly check your RAM. Run hard disk diagnostics, usually available
from the manufacturers website. Check all cables. Swap them out for
different ones if you can and see if the problem still persists. These
corruption errors could well be faulty hardware. Do bear in mind that even
new hardware can fail without warning.
 
Well, I thought you were on to something with this one (and you still
might be). I ran memtest86+, and on the second pass, sure enough, it
hit an error. So, to narrow it down, I took out each of the four
sticks and installed each one separately, running memtest86 against
each single stick. My most recent 1GB purchase (2 x 512MB) *both* had
errors during passes.

With the above in mind, I really thought I had my culprit. I ran tests
on the original Dell-supplied chips, and they passed without errors. I
started up Vista with only the known good sticks in, and tried to run
the same IE-downloaded installers... no luck. I tried to run the
nvidia installer, same error.

So, the sticks of RAM are definitely suspect, and may have been
causing other problems... but the underlying issue I'm having remains.
I haven't yet ran diagnostics on my harddrives... I'll try that
tomorrow.
 
You need to redownload your programs.

JoshB said:
Well, I thought you were on to something with this one (and you still
might be). I ran memtest86+, and on the second pass, sure enough, it
hit an error. So, to narrow it down, I took out each of the four
sticks and installed each one separately, running memtest86 against
each single stick. My most recent 1GB purchase (2 x 512MB) *both* had
errors during passes.

With the above in mind, I really thought I had my culprit. I ran tests
on the original Dell-supplied chips, and they passed without errors. I
started up Vista with only the known good sticks in, and tried to run
the same IE-downloaded installers... no luck. I tried to run the
nvidia installer, same error.

So, the sticks of RAM are definitely suspect, and may have been
causing other problems... but the underlying issue I'm having remains.
I haven't yet ran diagnostics on my harddrives... I'll try that
tomorrow.
Click to expand...
 
Unfortunately, it seems to go a bit farther than that... I did try
this, using IE, I tried to redownload one of them as a test. I
immediately got a blue screen as the file started to download.

I'm afraid that it sounds like I need to try reinstalling the OS
again, that the bad RAM corrupted the install (even though the sfc
scan showed no problems).

Any thoughts about that?
 
Back
Top