Cadstar Board Modeller 5.2 installation problem

Hello - I hope someone can help.

I'm trying to install Cadstar Board Modeller 5.2 but keep getting errors.

First of all it popped up with a message at the end of installation that DraGrid.dll could not be registered or unregistered. I registered it manually using RegSvr32 to see if it worked and it seemed to pass that point then comes up with an error 'unable to modify system registry item' - with no further info. When the install stops it rolls back and uninstalls itself. I have both Cadstar 11 and 12.1 installed as I'm trying to migrate from one to the other and don't want to remove 11 just yet. Thanks in advance.

What windows version are you using?

Do you have full admin auths on the PC?

(You do not need to remove 11)

You would have been better asking this in the PCB section - can a mod move it please?

Sorry - I thought I was in that section, not sure how it ended up in here! Please feel free to move it (I'm an admin on an internet forum so I know how annoying things in the wrong place can be).

I'm running Vista 32 with full admin rights. I've just tried to install again and got an access denied when writing one of the exe files during the install. Curiouser and curiouser!

This does sound like an authorisation error, I have seen it on Win7 but not for BML.

Uninstall.

Look in your registry HKLM\Software\Zuken area and see if there is already a boardmodeler entry? delete it.
If you cannot delete it then you need to take ownership of it to delete it.

Delete all entries relating to BML.

Then try again.

IF it still does it can you be more specific on the exact errors (what they say etc).

Also - select your whole drive, check it's properties and take ownership of it all.

Thanks - I deleted the key, tried to reinstall and I get a pop up with "The following error occurred on the file: 'C:\Program Files\Zuken\BoardModeler\bin\BM2L.exe'. Access is denied. (0x5) [Abort, Retry, Ignore]".

I have full access to the whole drive so I'm a bit flummoxed. The file in question hasn't yet been written to the disk. I've tried running the installer as administrator which has no effect (I'm administrator anyway so I wouldn't expect it to).

When I ignore it another error appears for each exe file, but the rest are written without a problem.

While you may have access, have you ownership?

Sorry - I don't quite follow...

There is a difference between access and ownership.

If you have access you can access and read it all.
If however you do not have ownership then you cannot install everywhere or add/delete new registry keys.

RMB your C:\ look in the properties (advanced) and ensure that you have ownership of it all.

May not be this but it does sound like an permissions problem.

thanks - tried it with no effect. In any case I would expect all files to be a problem and not just executables.

I have installed BML many times and this sounds more like a permissions problem than anything else.

Vista has a stupid "are you sure, are your really sure, are you really, really sure you wanna do that" thing - I generally turn it off - I'm an adult and dont need asking twice.

Is that the User Access Control rubbish?

Yep - thats it.

I disabled UAC, plus some other security settings that might affect it - no joy

I then had a different idea of why not install it somewhere other than Program Files and hey presto! I'm back to my original problem! The exe installs but it fails right at the end of installation with the 'Unable to modify registry' error. I can run the program, but not from Cadstar. Also BML gives an error that it can't run the CPA transfer tool (more permissions problems!).

I've never had this with any other software - not sure what Zuken and my PC have against each other.

---------- Post added at 10:32 ---------- Previous post was at 09:57 ----------

Thanks for all your help - I've had enough for now. I may come back to it in a few months!

---------- Post added at 11:15 ---------- Previous post was at 10:32 ----------

Aha! Had a last bit of inspiration - I installed in in Safe Mode and it all just works!!

Still don't know why, but at least it's happy now. Thank you for your help on this.