Category Archives: Development Toolbox

Submitting VMware Workstation 7 to install

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Roughly a month ago, VMware released a new major version of its Workstation (and Fusion) software (i.e. 7.0 (and 3.0, respectively)). So, it seemed like a good time to upgrade from version 6.5.3. Past protocol suggested the following approach: uninstall old, reboot, and install new. Unfortunately, and unexpectedly, this approach failed to result in an up-to-date Workstation installation.

Shortly after launching VMware-workstation-full-7.0.0-203739.exe, the installer presented:

(Version: )

Clicking the Uninstall button resulted in a second cryptic dialog being presented:

The MSI '' failed.

“The MSI ” failed.” seems to be a fairly unique phrase, especially when combined with VMware, etc.; so, I Googled to see what others had encountered. Suffice it to say that I found nothing that ultimately solved my installation issue–although I was able to reclaim over 9 GB of free space by running CCleaner, thanks to one post.

So, I confirmed that my host operating system is supported by VMware Workstation 7.0. I further confirmed that my Windows file system and registry were both clean of VMware-related content–rebooting after this confirmation. Nada.

Sometimes I’ve seen installers insist on being the party to uninstall older software. Since I’d uninstalled VMware Workstation 6.5.3 myself, I tried to reinstall the older software, reboot my host OS, and retry installing VMware Workstation 7.0:

6.5.3 install-uninstall

In hindsight, I could have seen that this wouldn’t resolve anything, but I clicked Uninstall as before…only to end up with the failed mystery MSI dialog once more.

So, I tracked down where VMware Workstation 7 wrote its installation logs: %TEMP%\vmware_*.log. I re-ran the installer to arrive back at the top state above, allowing me to recognize the associated log file and examine its state at the point of presenting the uninstall panel:

20091128194313:INFO    CGetMSIStateOperation::Execute: Examining the system for VMware Workstation.msi
20091128194313:INFO    CGetMSIStateOperation::Execute: MSI Data ProductCode: {A3FF5CB2-FB35-4658-8751-9EDE1D65B3AA}, PackageCode: {CDA82EA5-329A-428D-8ED3-9857244767DE}, UpgradeCode: {14F539F3-C4A4-4597-A29D-8C1D753ACC93} , Version: 7.0.0.9911
20091128194313:ERROR** CGetMSIStateOperation::GetSysVersionString: ::MsiGetProductInfo failed to retrieve the version string for {{98D1A713-438C-4A23-8AB6-41B37C4A2D47}} due to error: 1605
20091128194313:INFO    CGetMSIStateOperation::Execute: Installed MSI Data ProductCode: {98D1A713-438C-4A23-8AB6-41B37C4A2D47}, Version:
20091128194313:INFO    CGetMSIStateOperation::Execute: Default MSI Action: upgrade, Details: cross product
20091128194313:INFO    CBootstrapCmd::RunOperation: Operation 'GetMSIState' completed successfully with return code 65539
20091128194313:INFO    upgrade
20091128194313:INFO    cross product
20091128194313:INFO    CGetMSIStateOperation::Execute: Examining the system for
20091128194313:INFO    CGetMSIStateOperation::Execute: MSI Data ProductCode: {233A935E-6132-48B2-840F-37C9D32555D5}, PackageCode: {46F73961-902A-4A20-BB36-5060DC6ACB2C}, UpgradeCode: {2A0F937B-3E75-47D8-9306-14D45CC0F756} , Version: 4.0.0.0
20091128194313:INFO    CGetMSIStateOperation::Execute: Default MSI Action: install, Details:
20091128194313:INFO    CBootstrapCmd::RunOperation: Operation 'GetMSIState' completed successfully with return code 65539
20091128194313:INFO    install
20091128194313:INFO    SaveSetting: Wrote setting 'action', value 'upgrade'
20091128194313:INFO
20091128194313:INFO
20091128194313:INFO    {98D1A713-438C-4A23-8AB6-41B37C4A2D47}
20091128194313:INFO    SaveSetting: Wrote setting '{98D1A713-438C-4A23-8AB6-41B37C4A2D47}', value ';'
20091128194313:INFO    {98D1A713-438C-4A23-8AB6-41B37C4A2D47}

Right away, I could see that the installer was recognizing an unexpected upgrade state rather than the expected “fresh” install state. Fortunately, the log also captured more details behind this divergent recognition: “failed to retrieve the version string for {{98D1A713-438C-4A23-8AB6-41B37C4A2D47}} due to error: 1605.” First of all, this log statement is a bit of an oxymoron, since Windows error code 1605 (ERROR_UNKNOWN_PRODUCT) means “This action is only valid for products that are currently installed.” That is, if the product isn’t installed, then shouldn’t the current installer be “happy?” Second, this error led to the sparse dialogs (i.e. ” (Version: )” and “The MSI ”failed.”).

1605 redux

Again in hindsight, I could have Googled the suspect GUID to determine its relationship with VMware Workstation 5.5. However, I went back to my Windows Registry to perform additional forensics first. The first RegDB reference I found is associated with Windows’ ARP Cache, which has to do with Windows’ TCP/IP stack (i.e. needs to be left intact). I did find another RegDB key, HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Installer\Folders, with a value named C:\WINDOWS\Installer\{98D1A713-438C-4A23-8AB6-41B37C4A2D47}\, which I removed. Nevertheless, after rebooting, I was still unable to install VMware Workstation 7.0

So, I thought that if my 6.5.3-based hack appeared to have some merit, perhaps a similar, 5.5-based hack could, too. First I had to download the 5.5.9 installer and unearth my version 5.5 license key. With these in hand, I installed VMware Workstation 5.5.9 and then rebooted my host OS as directed.

Following reboot, I re-ran the VMware Workstation 7.0 installer, yet again:

5.5.9 install-uninstall

This time, after clicking Uninstall, I was eventually presented with the ability to proceed with installing the new software. After choosing to reboot at the end of the installation process and rebooting, I’m able to run VMware Workstation 7 as I originally expected.

Hopefully this knowledge sharing will help you to avoid the wasted time and energy I experienced. At least that’s my purpose in posting. Cheers…

PDF from Confluence

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Atlassian’s Confluence software offers a decent collaboration canvas in the form of an enterprise wiki. For example, Confluence can support the practice of “living and active” specifications (instead of, for example, obsolete-once-authored-in-Word specs). Often, though, it’s good to have a more self-contained snapshot in hand (e.g. increase traceability from one review-based state to another, support Customer audits, etc.). Fortunately, Confluence supports export to PDF.

Given its rather prominent display by default in the upper right hand corner of every wiki page, most Confluence users are aware of how to export a single page as a PDF document:

Export page as PDF

However, Confluence also supports exporting a set of wiki pages (up to an entire wiki space) as a single PDF document; yet, this feature is less well known. Here is the step-by-step process to leverage this feature (e.g. to export a multi-page, wiki-based spec as a single PDF document):

  1. Click the browse space link (on any page in the page set of interest):
    Browse Space
  2. Click the advanced link:
    Advanced
  3. Click the export space link:
    Export Space
  4. Configure your export as follows (recommended):
    Configure Export
  5. After setting PDF output, including comments, and clearing all selected pages, select the particular pages that make up the page set of interest.
  6. Click the export button at the bottom of this export space page.

Happy Thanksgiving!

More complete PDC09 downloader-renamer

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First of all, I want to thank Mike Swanson (@anyware) for his original work (e.g. for MIX09 and also for PDC09). Good stuff.

That being said, I noticed that there were posted sessions missing–six altogether–from the 11/19/2009-dated batch files here; so, I thought I’d post my “fix”:

It may be worth noting that my rename “style” includes session codes (e.g. SVC29), making it easier (for me anyway) to distinguish one overall theme from another.

For your convenience, here are copy of the original instructions for PDC09 use:

If you’d like to download all of the keynote and session content, download a recent build of cURL (~250K), and extract it to your folder-of-choice. Then, download PDC09Downloader.zip (1.49KB) and extract the PDC09Downloader.bat file to the same folder. From a command prompt, start PDC09Downloader by passing it one of the following parameters: WMVHIGH, WMV, MP4, PPTX. Then wait. For files that aren’t available, cURL will download a file that is around 221 bytes in size (if you change the extension to .htm and open it, you’ll see that the file is simply an HTML “not found” error page).

To rename the files, first, download the PDC09 Renamer batch file (4.52KB). Then, extract the PDC09Renamer.bat file to the folder that contains your downloaded files, and from a command prompt, type PDC09Renamer WMV to rename all of the .WMV files to the full session title. By changing the parameter, you can also rename your PPTX and MP4 files.

Update at 6pm Pacific: It looks like both of my scripts, above, are live on http://microsoftpdc.com/Videos, too.

Silverlight 3

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Today Silverlight 3 officially launched; so, I decided to cut-over to v3 from v2. Here’s what worked for me:

  1. Ensure that all browsers are closed before proceeding.
  2. Open the Control Panel to begin uninstalling older Silverlight 2-related software.
  3. Select “Microsoft Silverlight Tools for Visual Studio 2008 SP1 – ENU” and uninstall the older IDE integration.
  4. Select “Microsoft Silverlight 2 SDK” and uninstall the older SDK, which, in my case, was installed via the IDE integration installer.
  5. Select “Microsoft Silverlight” and uninstall the older runtime. In my case, I was running Silverlight 2 GDR 1 (2.0.40115.0). You can determine your current version, if need be, here.
  6. Since I didn’t have an older version of Expression Blend on my machine, I could proceed. If you have an older version (release of beta), you should remove it, first, then continue on here. Before you install please know that once you do, your machine now becomes a Silverlight 3 development machine. You cannot down-level target to Silverlight 2.
  7. Install Silverlight 3 RTW (3.0.40624.0).
  8. Install Microsoft Silverlight 3 Tools for Visual Studio 2008 SP1, which includes the Silverlight 3 SDK.
  9. Install the Release Candidate of Microsoft Expression Blend 3 + SketchFlow. (I was hoping for the final release of Blend today, but I’ll settle for this (60-day trial) RC (version 3.0.1921.0).)
  10. Upgrade your Silverlight 2 solutions to Silverlight 3 solutions via the upgrade wizard. Etc. Etc.

Since the web is already flooded with plenty of additional commentary and sample applications, I’ll stop here and keep it practical for now. However, I’m excited about this new release and have some ideas to pursue in Silverlight 3. Stay tuned… :-)

P.S. You may also want to download the HTML Help documentation for Silverlight 3.

EMC Documentum Developer Edition

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Today we launched a new EMC Documentum developer-oriented community within the EMC Community Network. Front and center is the new developer edition of the EMC Documentum ECM Platform.

So, what does this developer edition include? We believe it includes a lot of goodness for the development of content-enabled applications.

  • First of all, free software for developers
  • A new one-click installation process for the core of the EMC Documentum ECM Platform
  • xDB and new XML components – please visit the just-launched XML Technology Developer Community for more details about our native XML database and other technologies
  • Integration between the resulting development environment and online community resources and support mechanisms – think of this as a starting point and means to the ends you want to pursue, not an end in itself

Essentially, we’re trying to provide a low-touch, DIY experience. That being said, by integrating your local installation to an online community, the developer edition enables you to reach out to fellow developers and EMC employees as your pursuit your content management development interests grows. For example, you’ll find a range of white papers, documents and videos, as well as sample code in, for example, Java and C# (.NET). Topical tutorials available online are drawn from our Education Services library.

So, what is the process to obtain the free developer edition? We hope that it’s straightforward.

  1. Browse here and login into ECN/EDN
  2. Navigate here and complete a short (less than 30 seconds) registration form. Click the “Continue” button to proceed to the download site. (You may need to add ecn_communications@emc.com to your email safe senders list so as not to miss messages from that address (i.e. have them interpreted by Outlook as junk).)
  3. Navigate the EMC SubscribeNet links to arrive at the FTP download (or HTTPS-based download, if you prefer). Note that the download is a bit more than 1.73 GB and represents a Zip archive, which means that you should ensure adequate disk space to extract, deploy, etc.
  4. Commence your download.

In a follow-up post, I’ll walk you through the installation experience and how to leverage the version of DFS that comes with the developer edition. BTW, if you’re too anxious to dive in and can’t wait for my post, go for it! There is an online getting started guide as well as an online tutorial for building your first application.

Cheers! :-)

Update 5/20/2009: Well, I’m about to take a much needed vacation, and I have yet to follow-up with a walk-thru post. So, I wanted to at least provide some details here as to what this software requires system-wise. System requirements are as follows (and are displayed in the initial installer screen):

  • No Microsoft SQL Server or SQL Server Express installed [1]
  • No other Documentum software installed [2]
  • Microsoft .NET 2.0 or higher [3]
  • Browser with Sun JRE 5.0 update 16 or higher [4]
  • Minimum of 3 GB RAM (4 GB RAM is recommended)
  • 5 GB of free disk space [5]
  • Intel x86 CPU
  • Operating system–again 32-bit only for this release–is one of the following: Windows XP SP3, Windows Server 2003 SP2 or Windows Server 2003 R2 SP2
  • You must be logged in as a member of the Windows Administrators group, but not necessarily as Administrator

Notes:
[1] Be aware that if you already have Visual Studio (e.g. 2005 or 2008) installed on your target machine, you may need to first uninstall the version of SQL Server that may have been installed with the IDE. If you are running Windows SharePoint Services or UDDI on your target (Windows Server 2003) machine, you may also need to see what embedded database is supporting these services before proceeding with this developer edition installation.
[2] Be sure to understand where you may still have Documentum-related configuration files on disk (e.g. dfc.properties, C:\Documentum, etc.).
[3] Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 is required for WCF-based consumption of DFS endpoints; so, I recommend .NET 3.0, which includes (requires as its foundation) .NET 2.0. .NET 3.5 is also supported by DFS, if you prefer to leverage WCF “v2.”
[4] This is supported by Webtop and DA.
[5] Keep in mind that, as I noted above, the Zip archive download is a bit more than 1.73 GB. The total size of its extracted contents is not that much larger, but you’re also starting to approach 4 GB; so, I recommend that you have 10 GB free disk space in order to complete the installation with room to spare before cleaning up the extracted bits and the original archive to reclaim that 4 GB.

…and, welcome, CMS Watch readers! :-)

Update 7/16/2009: Be sure to run Windows Update after installing DevEd. Typically, you’ll need to apply SQL Server 2005 SP3. Note that if you upgrade a DevEd environment from 6.5 SP1 to 6.5 SP2 (via uninstall-reboot-install) that you should still run Windows Update after your upgrade, and you may need to re-apply SQL Server 2005 SP3.

When upgrading a DevEd environment from 6.5 SP1 to 6.5 SP2, I also recommend that following the uninstall and reboot, that you confirm C:\Documentum and C:\Program Files\Documentum are empty before you proceed to install the newer DevEd.

Finally, if you’re reading this blog but not the installation guide, please note that you should uninstall DevEd via Start | Programs | Documentum | Uninstall, not via Add/Remove Programs under Control Panel.