Install issue - PDF-XChange Lite 4

[prius]

Looking for any and all suggestions here. I am getting the following error message (in a dialog box) at the end of the install of PDF-XChange Lite v4.0185:

Printers - Operation could not be completed

What's worse is that I have not been able to uninstall and re-install the product as the uninstall is completely and totally non-functional. Regardless, the printer driver never does appear in "Printers and Faxes" nor is it an option in other apps, such as MS Word. FWIW, I'm running XP Pro w/SP3.

TIA for any helpful info.

EDIT: Another odd thing is that I tried downloading and installing PDF-XChange Standard. The print driver DOES appear in "Printers and Faxes" and can be seen as a print option in all apps in which I've looked. Unfortunately, I only have a key for the Lite version (which, of course, should work anyway).

[prius]

Please disregard the previous post.

As it turned out, I was able to upgrade to PDF-XChange PRO for $44 (USD). I had been considering doing just that for some time now and the install failure of the Lite version provided the impetus for me to do so.

Thanks anyway; the PRO version installed without incident and, from all appearances, is functioning properly.

[John - Tracker Supp]

Excellent thanks Prius

[Fantasio]

Hello,

I have the exact same issue.

Just updated from PDFXchange Lite 4.0.184 to 4.0.185. I tried reinstalling several times over and it didn't solve the problem. I cannot uninstall it to perform a clean reinstall.

Would you please look into it, see if you can replicate this bug?

Thank you in advance,

Fantasio
Up-to-date Windows XP Pro SP3

[Paul - Tracker Supp]

HI Fantasio,

I just did a test install of PDF-XChange Lite 4.0185 on an XP x86 (SP3) Virtual Machine and all installed as expected - PDF-XChange Lite 4.0 is in my "Printers and Faxes" list. There must be something specific to your system that has stopped this installation from completing as it should. Do you have any Internet Security or Firewall applications running? We have for example seen some issues where Kaspersky KIS has blocked our software.

If you do have a security app can you try running the installer with it disabled to see if that makes a difference.

If you are not running any such software we may need to dig a little deeper in which case I would ask you to use the Viewer (PDF-XChange Viewer) to report a problem. If you select Help --> Report a Problem from within the Viewer it will compose an email to us and attach some zip files with system details, we'll need those to be attached. Please also make a reference to this forum post so we can cross reference this.

regards

[Fantasio]

Hi Paul,

Thank you for your early reply.

I indeed do have Kaspersky AV running in the background together with Comodo Firewall +. The thing is neither KAV nor CF+ ever displayed any warning pop-up window during the install, which would have lead me to suspect them for causing this issue.

I actually managed to regain control over the uninstall application by installing PDFXChange 4.0.184.0 over ver. 4.0.185.0, which means that under the same conditions (ie. security software running in the background), ver. 4.0.185.0 and ver. 4.0.184.0 behave differently, the latter installing successfully while the former getting stuck at the end of the process.

I am always a bit wary when a piece of software requires disabling security software to install or run properly; security software are meant to protect systems, not prevent safe applications from running or installing. It is noteworthy this issue only occured with ver. 4.0.185.0. Any idea about what change might cause KAV or Comodo Firewall to block its install?

I will have to look further into KAV's effect on PDFSaver as even though I can install previous builds, I cannot print anymore, with PDFSaver spooling endlessly and freezing my browser and system (already posted on this issue under another subject).

Regards,

Fantasio

[Paul - Tracker Supp]

Hi Fantasio

have you seen this thread?: https://forum.pdf-xchange.com/ ... =35&t=8741 toward the bottom Stefan reports the following settings in Kaspersky 2011 made the difference for his user.

It turned out that it was Kasperski Internet Security blocking us.

He is using KIS 2011 and here are the steps he made to add our Viewer as a trusted application which solved the problem:
Open KIS 2011
Go to Settings -> Detection and exclusion rules ( it's the forth small icon at the top left end in the settings window) -> Exclusions -> Settings -> Trusted apps - > Add -> And select to add our Application as a trusted one.

I understand your concern regarding the purpose of Security software and you should be able to set Kaspersky up to accept PDF-XChange as a trusted application. There are so many applications available I would not expect any security application to know of them all. We must teach it.

You make an interesting point about the difference in versions, we will consider this for sure.

Do let us know how this goes for you.

regards

[Fantasio]

Hi Paul,

Thanks for your reply.

For the time being, I decided to play it safe and install the previous version (4.0.184.0). To minimize the impact of security software along the process, I disabled both KAV and Comodo Firewall before launching the install.

Although I cannot be 100% sure about what caused the bug that occurred while installing ver. 4.0.185.0 - Is it my system? Is it my security suite? Is it PDF-XChange Lite 4? - I would welcome further testing and feedback on your part.

Right now, my biggest concern is that despite a successful install, despite my adding PDFSaver to the trusted applications in KAV and Comodo firewall, despite hours of painful testing - probably had to hard reset my laptop 20 odd times - I still cannot print and, worse, cannot tell for sure which security application is causing this issue. The only thing I am certain is that when disabling both KAV and CFW, I managed to print. But this last part is related to another subject, which I am going to update right away.

While users should indeed be able to set their security suite not to conflict with trusted applications, I cannot but wonder why some applications do conflict with security software and some don't. Most of the applications running on my system did install and run flawlessly with security software on in the background.

Assuming of course that you can replicate this issue with KAV upon testing, may I suggest your team gets in touch with Kaspersky to try and analyse this bug?

Thank you anyway and in advance for your follow-up.

Regards,

Fantasio

P.S. : update

Just performed additional testing and can now positively state the following: the issue seems indeed to be caused by Kaspersky AV, not Comodo Firewall.

[Paul - Tracker Supp]

Hi again Fantasio,

we have been in contact with Kaspersky and are getting rather frustrated with the lack of response from them.

In so far as the differences between build 184 and 185 - we didn't actually change anything in PDF-XChange 4 Lite.

We will certainly do everything we can at this end to resolve this - but if Kapersky refuse to respond - its obviously somewhat limited in terms of what we can do, maybe they would respond to paying customers complaining ?

sincerely

[Fantasio]

All right, I will raise this issue on their support forum and will let you know their response.

[John - Tracker Supp]

Many thanks !

[pthebault]

Hello

I have the exact same problem as the first post on this thread. I tried Lite and downloaded the trial version. It worked fine. I decided to buy it but I saw the special on getting it free with Viewer Pro so I got viewer upgraded to Pro first. I couldn't find a place to insert a key in Lite once I got the key so I tried to uninstall it and it wouldn't uninstall. I downloaded Lite again to have it overwrite the existing install. I got the message that it couldn't install the printer. It still won't uninstall.
I tried downloading the Standard version as a trial (like the first post) and it worked fine and installed the printer. I uninstalled it after I tested it.

I have sent a request for support from the Viewer with the zip attachments as you requested above.

Phil

[John - Tracker Supp]

Hi Phil,

we have found that some AV/Security products appear to block the install from finishing - but in point of fact if the system is restarted - then all appears to function correctly - could you please restart your PC - try a full install and then restart again - then try and print and advise if this resolves.

We have made contact with Kapersky and looks like we will need to follow up with Symantec too ..

Thanks and await your advice as to the result.

[Fantasio]

Hi Paul, John,

First of all, Kaspersky just released a (b) patch for its 2011 AV (11.0.1.400 (a.b)) that solves PDFSaver's hang-up issue - see relevant subject.

About ver. 4.0.185.0 being blocked at the end of the install process, here is what I found.

I performed the update recommended by Kaspersky, which means my AV was running under its most up-to-date build and database.

PDFXChange Lite 4.0.185.0 installed without any problem and prompted for restart. I rebooted, then tried to uninstall it. The problem persists: I am still unable to uninstall the latest build while the previous one (4.0.184.0) works fine. How on earth these two should behave differently under the exact same environment if - as Paul claims - nothing was changed is something I am still puzzled about.

I guess we'll have to wait for Kaspersky's response on this one.

Looking forward to hearing from you soon on this problem.

Regards,

Fantasio

[John - Tracker Supp]

Hi Fantasio,

so this remains a problem ?

V4.0184 installs ok - but 185 does not ?

and adding to the trusted application list does not help ?

Thanks for your help.

[Fantasio]

Hi John,

Yes, even adding all the executables files present in the install folder (C:\Program Files\Tracker Software\PDF-XChange Lite 4) to the trusted application list does not seem to help.

When I try to uninstall, I get the following error message:

Internal Error: failed to get version number of _shfoldr.fll

F

[John - Tracker Supp]

Thanks Fantasio,

I suspect this is stil a Kapersky issue - but we will investigate further .

Appreciate the info.

[Fantasio]

Would you please notify me by email when a new build solving this issue is available? Thank you, in advance. F

[Paul - Tracker Supp]

You don't have an email address associated with this forum account. Can you send an email to support@pdf-xchange.com indicating that you are Fantasio.

[Fantasio]

Hello, Paul,

Just sent you an email. You may also post a reply for everyone under this thread. I have subscribed to the automatic notification. Thank you.

Cheers,

Fantasio

[Paul - Tracker Supp]

Thanks Fantasio, will do.

[prius]

Hi Paul, John, Fantasio, and Phil!

Just an update, oddly enough based on the recent updated build of PDF-XChange Lite and PRO (by this time, hopefully everyone is aware that the latest build is 4.0.186).

I downloaded and installed the latest build and, whoops, I received the same error as in my original post. After a restart, the printer did not appear so this was another botched install. What I did discover, though, was that simply disabling my AV (I use ESET NOD32) allowed the install to complete properly. I just figured I'd post this message since the problem doesn't appear to be limited to Kaspersky.

What I find strange is that I did *not* have to disable NOD32 when I installed the previous build (4.0.185). Further, I also did not have to disable NOD32 on a different PC (which is sort of a secondary "test" machine) even when installing the latest build, 4.0.186. I can only assume, from what's been posted here and my own experience, that whatever the issue happens to be, it's limited to a user's specific s/w setup on his/her machine (which ***appears*** to be security-related but is not consistent across builds).

[Paul - Tracker Supp]

Thanks for that Prius, your research is definitely helpful. We'll look into this.

[RGuatta]

Hello,
I have exactly the same Problem.
When I Install pdf-xchange Lite 4 I hear that "someting went wrong" sound, close to the End of the installation. But no Error-Window comes up. The Installation continues with asking for the license-code.
No Printer shows up and pdf-exchange lite can not be uninstalled anymore.
I use Avast Antvirus and disabled it for the Installation with no success.
I use Windows 7 Pro 32-bit, maybe that is the Problem.
I installed pdf-xchange Lite 4 on XP pro (also with Avast) and all worked good.
Maybe it is a Win 7 issue

[Paul - Tracker Supp]

Thanks for the update. I have created a Support Request Ticket to track the progress of this investigation. RT#496: Install issue - PDF-XChange Lite 4

I will post back here with developments as they come to me.

[Ivan - Tracker Software]

To RGuatta: Please confirm you are using build 186 of Lite?

[RGuatta]

Oh Sorry, my vault.
I used build 184.
With build 186 the installation works fine.
Thank you.

[Paul - Tracker Supp]

still - thanks for the info RGuatta.

I'm pleased you are up and running.

[Paul - Tracker Supp]

Hi again to all who have posted on this thread.

RGuatta indicated that his problem was resolved using build 186 (current) https://www.pdf-xchange.com/PDFX4SA_LE.zip

prius you pointed out that with build 186 you successfully installed after disabling NOD32. Do you require anything further here?

Fantasio and pthebault it seems that you still are having issues with build 186. Can you confirm this please? I need to know if this still needs an investigation.

regards

[Fantasio]

Hello Paul,

No, indeed, build 186 seems to have solved this issue. I installed it and printed successfully. Case closed, as far as I am concerned. Thanks a lot!

Fantasio

[Paul - Tracker Supp]

HI Fantasio,

fantastic news. pthebault - that only leaves you to get sorted. Can you advise as to the state of build 186 please?

regards

[Paul - Tracker Supp]

OK - unless we hear to the contrary we will consider this closed.