Fix for - InstallScript Setup Launcher Unicode Has Stopped Working in Windows 2008 or Windows Server 2012

If you have some software and they use the Flexera windows installer, you may get the error: "InstallScript Setup Launcher Unicode Has Stopped Working."  If you look at additional data on the error you may see it say APPCRASH in ISSETUP.DLL with an error of c0000005.

I searched high and low and there isn't much documented about it, at least nothing that fixed it for me on a Windows Server 2012 R2 XenApp server.

I'll cut to the chase, the ultimate problem is that the stupid installer program crashes if it can't find the STARTUP folder in the All-Users menu.  It doesn't even put anything in there, at least not the program I was installing, Modelogix.  The more frustrating issue is that it doesn't tell you what the problem is, just the useless error code mentioned above.  Err!!  So I spent countless hours troubleshooting this.

All the other solutions out there must only work in Windows 7 and below, not Windows 8 or Server 2012 and above.

Other solutions say to manually create the following folders if they are missing:
1. C: > Users > ("Yourname" Windows account ) > My Documents
2. C: > Users > ("Yourname" Windows account ) > AppData > Local
3. C: > Users > ("Yourname" Windows account ) > AppData > Roaming > Microsoft > Windows > Start Menu > Programs > Startup
4. C: > Users > Default > Documents
5. C: > Users > Default > AppData > Roaming > Microsoft > Windows > Start Menu > Programs > Startup
Source: https://community.flexerasoftware.com/showthread.php?207204-InstallScript-Setup-Launcher-Unicode-Has-Stopped-Working-%28Windows-message%29 

The problem is that Windows 8 and Server 2012 don't use C:\USERS\DEFAULT for the all-users area any longer!!

In Windows 8 and Server 2012 and above, they use the hidden root folder C:\PROGRAMDATA.  To be 100% sure on your system type SET ALL from a command prompt; this will display the value for the ALLUSERSPROFILE system variable and will tell you the path.

So for me, all I needed to do to fix the issue was to create the STARTUP folder in the following path: C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs   
We had removed it as it wasn't used and I was trying to simplify the menu for our users.  This folder is hidden but you can manually type it into windows explorer, or change your settings to view hidden folders.

Once I created it in there, tada, the stupid setup program would run. I believe Flexera may have fixed this bug but your software vendor may still be using this older version.

Let me know if this helped YOU!!  

Windows Search Not Working

I was having a problem getting Windows Search to work on a Windows 2012 R2 server and didn't find much help out in Google-land.  Most results for Windows Search or Indexing Service was for desktop OS's also.  

Here was my scenario:

• I installed the Windows Search Feature on a Windows 2012 R2 server.  
• In Control Panel -> Indexing Options, I added the "Marketing" folder from a drive that is attached to the server, plus a few other folders on a different drive.  
• The "few others" seemed to work.  However, now on the Marketing folder, when you did a search,  all that would come up was "No items match your search."
• What's worse, you could no longer search the Marketing folder at all, not even the slow non-indexed way.  Everything would turn up "No items match your search."
• Searching for help on the Internet was a bust. 

I noticed Event ID 3036 in the Application log.  There were some hits on that, but again not much help on Google.  The main thing that caught my attention in the log entry though was "Crawl could not be completed on content source <file:H:/Marketing/>."    Then down lower in the details it said "Access is denied". Ding-Ding!  

I checked the security on H: (a local hard drive) but that looked fine.  However, when I looked at the Marketing folder itself, the security was changed and inheritance was taken away.  This was so that Domain Users didn't have any sort of access by default - only certain users have access to that folder.  The issue was that whoever setup the security (which might have been me) didn't put SYSTEM in there with Full Control (or any rights at all in this case.)  I added SYSTEM in there with Full Control and applied; it took a while to propagate.  

Within a few minutes of that change I noticed (within the Indexing Options control panel applet) that indexing was chugging again and the documents count was going up.  When done, indexing was working – yeah!! 

So since there wasn’t any solution that I could find when searching the Internet, I figured I’d toss it on where to perhaps help the next guy!

This was helpful too, so I didn’t have to wait FOREVER for indexing to take place.

Make indexing run faster (don't pause for user activity)

Regedit -> Computer\HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows Search\UseLowPriorityConfiguration - change to "0"

Trick to get huge audio book discounts

Okay, this is a little off topic for this blog, but I think it is good information.  I'm a reader and also SciFi author and I’ve just recently found that I love audio books.  I figured they were for the hearing impaired or for workers with long commutes.  My commute is only about 15 minutes to work.  However, when working to produce the audio book for The Curse of Europa, I figured I should listen to an audio book or two.  Now I’m hooked!!  Even though my commute is only 15 minutes, that is still a good 30 minutes a day.  If I go to lunch I may listen again in my car, or take headphones and listen while I eat.  It’s great because it’s hard to find time to read and it is easy now to plug reading into time that is otherwise “wasted”, such as driving a car.

On our trip to Florida (driving from Michigan), it was great.  It kept me awake better than the radio.  Even laying in the sun.  Sure, you can easily read, but it sure is more relaxing to just lay back and listen (especially if the audio book production is top notch.)  Many narrators will do certain voices for the various characters.  Depending on the narrator, sometimes this can be great, sometimes a bit weird.  If you’ve got a good narrator if adds a whole new level to the enjoyment of the book.

So what is this “trick?”  

It’s not really a trick I guess.  There’s nothing devious or deceitful about it. It’s taking advantage of special pricing if you do things in the correct order.

Read entire article on my Author Blog: http://bpkayser.wordpress.com/2013/05/24/audio-book-disc