[fptex] Re: BUG IDENTIFIED: TeXsetup.exe / Win95(b) installation problem [TeXLive 7 -9/2003]

[Leif Leonhardy]

Hello Fabrice and fpTeX-Users out there,
a happy new year to all.

> > Hello folks, I have some "fatal" problem installing TeXLive 7 (9/2003)
> > on an old Windows'95-Box (Win95B=OSR2):
> > TeXsetup.exe (without any parameters) just silently exits after a few
> > seconds of deep thinking(?). [And no log files are created.]

[If this wasn't clear: No window is created (unless I force command line
 errors or specify --maintenance); the command prompt returns after ~1-3
 seconds on an AMD K6/III at 400MHz.]

The problem occurs due to the version of COMCTL32.DLL (custom controls),
which here was 4.70 (*original* Win95B Build 1111). This usually gets up-
dated if you install other (Microsoft?) stuff I think.
Version 4.72.3611(.1900) of COMCTL32.DLL taken from another Win95B-Box
works well.

Funny enough, version numbers of COMCTL32.DLL and SHLWAPI.DLL (shell
light-weight utility API) are probed (they appear in the log file), but
obviously to late, because no log files were created.
[SHLWAPI.DLL ver. 4.70.1155 on both machines, "ProductName Windows NT" ;-]

[Unfortunately, the DLL version info is sometimes coded in wide chars in
 the .rsrc section, so "strings <dll> | grep -i version" (or searching a
 hexdump) will fail in most cases; using the Explorer (File->Properties->
 Version) is hard if you want to check hundreds of DLLs...]


Btw, I discovered a severe space leak in the tree view of packages if you
run TeXsetup in maintenance mode (probably inside MFC). The limited 64K 
system & GDI resources of DOS-crippled-Windows ('95, '98[SE], Me?) go low
rapidly if you unfold subtrees to find out if there are further "red"
packages - an "Update all (installed) packages" button would be a nice 
work-around.

It took several turns to install all updates because the tree view gets
unusable after a couple of unfolds, even if you click "next" and "back".


Also, in maintenance mode, after unpacking the updates TeXsetup hangs re-
building the ls-R database (leaving an instance of MKTEXLSR.EXE).
Aborting TeXsetup and afterwards updating the configuration manually
(through the TeXLive maintenance menu) works (no hang). Selecting no package
at all the configuration part also works...

I'll examine that further.
 

Another gimmick: XEmacs won't run because KERNEL32.DLL does not implement/
export CopyFileExW, next Popup states "a device connected to the system is
not functional" (or like that - translated from German).
The menu item suddenly pointed to WINCLIENT.EXE, but this happened last
year... (not reproduceable).

Anyway, I don't have X and I don't like Emacs,
TeXs run fine, ghosts require clean-up...

Greetings,
New Year's Leif