[Python-bugs-list] [ python-Bugs-418156 ] V2.1 installer not working on NT4 SP5
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Mon, 23 Apr 2001 03:06:00 -0700
Bugs item #418156, was updated on 2001-04-23 01:01
You can respond by visiting:
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Category: Windows
>Group: Not a Bug
Status: Open
>Resolution: Accepted
Priority: 5
Submitted By: Xavier Lagraula (xlagraula)
Assigned to: Tim Peters (tim_one)
Summary: V2.1 installer not working on NT4 SP5
Initial Comment:
Hello.
I have a windows NT server (Nec PowerMate VT, 128Mo
RAM) with quite a lot of products installed. During
the installation, I always get a "corrupt installation
detected" pop-up, whereas the files can correctly be
extracted from the archive by winzip 8 or winrar
2.80b2.
The products installed are
- Business Bridge V2.3.16 & V3.0.6 servers (SYSTAR)
- MySQL 3.23.32 server (+ODBC driver)
- Naviscope
- I.I.S. 4.0
- Winzip 8 french
- WinRAR 2.80b2
- Cygwin 1.1
- MS SQL/Server 6.5 client (+ODBC driver)
- MouseWare 9.00.99
- Office 97
- Oracle 7.3.4 & 8i clients (+ODBC drivers)
- UltraEdit 8
- TNG Remote Control Option
I'd like to know if there are any incompatibilities
between the installer and any of these products, and
I'd like to be given a manual procedure that would
allow me to install python on my workstation.
Moreover, seeing that:
- I am not the only one having installation problems
on windows
- I have had problems every time I have tried to
install Python 2.1 on windows (both NT and 2000)
- The Python windows installer is a 16 bit technology
that is not supported anymore if I can believe what
tim_one told me (see request ID 416824)
My conclusion is that we all should consider using
another windows installer.
Regards,
Xavier
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Comment By: Xavier Lagraula (xlagraula)
Date: 2001-04-23 03:04
Message:
Logged In: YES
user_id=198402
OK... Here are the news: I have installed ActiveState
version without problems. I had to: how the hell could I
compute a MD5 digest of the Python installer with a Python
script, if I can't have Python installed, hm?
Anyway the digest proved to be perfectly correct. After
all, I tried downloading the file for 2 different sources,
and this was not a copy of the file I used on Win2k (see
request ID 416824). But computing this digest allowed me to
find the origin of the problem. I realized that I had saved
the installer on a remote drive (windows shared directory
on our file server), when I had to type "V:Python-21.exe" :)
My guess is that the SYSTEM account must have the right to
read the directory containing the installer, and it was not
the case. Once copied locally, it seems to work (I didn't
go through the entire process, though, as I already had
Python installed before).
I don't know if using the msi format is free or not.
Another way for M$ to make money with a new mandatory
installation format? If it's free, then it's the obvious
choice for a future version of the windows installer. I'll
try to gather some informations about it.
And "as to believing you", I must apologize to you: this
sentence was a dumb litteral transcription of a french
idiom which doesn't have exactly the sense it seems to
have. This was just a way to tell readers that this
information did came from you, so having a look at what you
said may be of interest. No harm intended, really.
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Comment By: Tim Peters (tim_one)
Date: 2001-04-23 01:42
Message:
Logged In: YES
user_id=31435
We are having more reports of installer problems under 2.1
than under previous releases, but I can still count the
total on one hand. Since we don't have the installer
source code, and reports are still so rare (notwithstanding
your particular bad luck) there's not much we can do to
track them down.
Did you use the MD5 checksum program to verify your binary
is valid? Go to http://www.python.org/2.1/, go down to
the "MD5 checksums" section, and click on the "MD5" part of
the section heading to get a Python program for computing
the MD5 digest.
In *almost* all past cases of "corrupt installation
detected" messages, further investigation has revealed that
the binary *was* corrupt. The MD5 digest is a very
powerful check on that (much stronger than a CRC): if the
checksum you get doesn't match the one on the web page
above, your installer is definitely corrupt. If it
matches, the chance that it's corrupt anyway is too small
to entertain. So do that. That you've had *repeated*
installation failures is unprecedented in Python's history,
so my top guess has to be you have a flaky binary.
There is only one other cause I've ever heard of for
a "corrupt installation detected" message under NT: the
user was logged in to a Restricted account when they tried
to install. In that case, the Wise installer apparently
can't even get at the system components it needs to compute
its own internal checksums, and interprets that failure as
a bad checksum.
So, what were you logged in as? If the MD5 digest matches,
and you're logged in to an Administrator account when it
fails, then you've got a problem never reported before. Do
you?
As to using another Windows installer, I'm in favor of
that, but so are you <wink>: who's going to do the work?
I can tell you I don't have time for it. BTW, have you
tried ActiveState's Python installer for Windows? That's
built with entirely different, and up-to-date, technology.
Maybe it will work better for you. But the terms of the
ActiveState license don't allow us to use it too (fine by
me -- they paid for it).
As to believing me, you don't have to: ask Wise
Solutions. It's their product, version 5.0a. You can't
even find it mentioned on their web site anymore -- it's
that old! They're on version 8 now, and even their
newsgroups only back to version 6.
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You can respond by visiting:
http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?func=detail&atid=105470&aid=418156&group_id=5470