FrameMaker Server 8 - Installation error

[_Jon_Beets_]

Folks,

When installing FrameMaker Server 8 through a Remote Desktop Connection to a Windows 2003 server, the installation errors and rolls back. The entry in the event log is not helpful as shown below:

Event Type: Information
Event Source: MsiInstaller
Event Category: None
Event ID: 11708
Date: 8/07/2008
Time: 4:05:51 PM
User: REMOVED
Computer: REMOVED
Description:
Product: Adobe FrameMaker 8 -- Installation operation failed.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
Data:
0000: 7b 37 42 34 43 41 34 38 {7B4CA48
0008: 30 2d 37 33 32 31 2d 34 0-7321-4
0010: 41 44 34 2d 42 45 44 31 AD4-BED1
0018: 2d 46 37 31 37 37 36 37 -F717767
0020: 31 43 33 37 45 7d 1C37E}

The MSI Log file snippet below show the error detail:

Fail to load: C:\DOCUME~1\REMOVED\LOCALS~1\Temp\{7B4CA480-7321-4AD4-BED1-F7177671C37E}\adobelm_service_installer.dll
MSI (s) (30!74) [16:05:36:971]: Closing MSIHANDLE (4983) of type 790531 for thread 628
MSI (s) (30!74) [16:05:36:971]: Creating MSIHANDLE (4984) of type 790531 for thread 628
TSCLib Return code: 502
MSI (s) (30!74) [16:05:36:971]: Closing MSIHANDLE (4984) of type 790531 for thread 628
MSI (s) (30:B8) [16:05:36:971]: Closing MSIHANDLE (4980) of type 790536 for thread 4748
Action ended 16:05:36: InstallFinalize. Return value 3.

The problem appears to be hard coding of the path to adobelm_service_installer.dll. As can be seen from the MSI log extract below, the path should have included a \1 after the Temp folder:

1: Extracting Setup File:
MSI (c) (64!70) [16:02:22:872]: Closing MSIHANDLE (58) of type 790531 for thread 3440
MSI (c) (64!70) [16:02:22:872]: Creating MSIHANDLE (59) of type 790531 for thread 3440
1: C:\DOCUME~1\REMOVED\LOCALS~1\Temp\1\{7B4CA480-7321-4AD4-BED1-F7177671C37E}\adobelm_service_installer.dll

There is a Group Policy setting, "Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Terminal Services\Temporary folders
", that allows disabling of the appending of the Session ID to the temp path, so there is a work around.

However I believe there is a bug in the MSI or install DLL's where the path to the Temp folder is hard coded.

BTW I would expect the same problem to occur with FrameMaker 8 standalone version, as the only difference is in the licensing.

We do not have a support contract with Adobe, so while we will report this through the channels we have, experience suggest not much will happen. Hopefully this post will save others wasting time.

I do not believe Adobe state whether installing via a Remote Desktop Connection is supported, however in a virtual world this is normal. These days I rarely log on to a server console directly.

regards

Jon Beets

[MichaelKazlow]

Jon,

Installation issues are handled by Tech Support for free.

Mik

[_Jon_Beets_]

Mike,

Thanks for the response. I will post any information received from Adobe Support here, should we get a response.

In the meantime there is another work around. The temporary folder setting "Use temporary folders per session" can be set to No by using the Terminal Services Configuration snapin tscc.msc. This seems to take precedence over the group policy settings.

regards

Jon Beets

[_Matt_Schrandt_]

The installation uses 2 environment variables TMP and TEMP. It copies the source files needed for "Adobe PDF Creation Add-On" (which gets installed at the end of the Framemaker 8.0 install) to the directory defined by TMP and is looking for adobelm_service_installer.dll in the directory defined by TEMP. So...if both environment variables point to the same directory, you will have success. Our company has full support for these products, but they weren't at all interested in letting me talk to someone who actually understood installer technology. My workaround was to copy the necessary files to the needed directory prior to installation. This allowed us to achieve a successfull deployment to users without changing our environment variables.

[_Jon_Beets_]

Matt,

Thanks for the information. I did try setting the TMP and TEMP, as I remember, without success. I will have an opportunity when we move to Production so I will try then. BTW where did you set TEMP and TMP variables, from the system control panel applet (User or system), or at the command line?

regards

Jon Beets

[_Matt_Schrandt_]

From the System control panel I set System variables TMP and TEMP to point to C:\TEMP and it ran successfully. I also set them both to c:\TMP and it ran successfully.

[_julie_hunter_]

Will installing the 8.02/8.04 patch fix the PDF creation errors?

[MichaelKazlow]

There is a windows hotfix for fixing errors related to creating pdfs. I
don't have the link offhand.

Mike