Installation Error in 2.9.1 under Vista

[Blackfoot]

My friend is having trouble loading Fantasy Grounds on her laptop. She's running in Vista and she has been problems for the last few weeks. Her initial installation came up tweaky and she hasn't had any images since installation. Today she updated to 2.9.2 and it came back with these errors:

Unable to get path.
SHGetSpecialFolderPath failed.

It seems like her setup somehow is having an issue with the path... and that's why it can't find the images or do the update right.
It seems like it finished the update but it is still having issues.

Help!

[Griogre]

Hmm. It sounds like to me she might have run the FG installer in admin mode which screws up virtualization. I'd uninstall, then re-install in normal mode. If the installer asks for permission to run as admin then say yes but if it doesn't don't run installers in admin because it cuts off all the virtual shortcut paths like to the data app folder.

Vista and Win7 are different from XP in that you don't want to brute force admin during installations.

[Blackfoot]

Hmm.. I will have her try this.. hopefully it will resolve it.
Thanks.

[Trenloe]

Hmm. It sounds like to me she might have run the FG installer in admin mode which screws up virtualization. I'd uninstall, then re-install in normal mode. If the installer asks for permission to run as admin then say yes but if it doesn't don't run installers in admin because it cuts off all the virtual shortcut paths like to the data app folder.

Vista and Win7 are different from XP in that you don't want to brute force admin during installations.
This is not my experience - I run Windows 7 (and Vista before it) and I install a lot of my applications (Fantasy Grounds II included) by "Run as Administrator". Some application installations even tell you to do this. It shouldn't screw up the virtual paths - it should still put them under \Users\<USERNAME>\AppData\Roaming\Fantasy Grounds II - it won't install it under the "Administrator" user.

Still, it is worth a go uninstalling and not running the installer as administrator and if that doesn't work, uninstall and try running as administrator.

[Griogre]

I was incorrect in my statement. I hadn't seen a problem like that in a long time probably since Vista was still new. It only effects 32 bit Vista - not Vista 64 bit or Win7 like I said. Its easy enough to tell if its the problem, just check in program files and see if the files and folders that should be in data apps are there instead or in the registry's VirtualStore key under some version of the Fantasy Grounds name. I don't remember the exact registry path to the VirualStore in Vista 32.

[Blackfoot]

Hmm... ok.. so how does she fix this? This might be a bit hard for me to explain remote. She's in Toronto and I'm in New Jersey so I can't actually lay hands on the machine. :(

[Griogre]

If that is the problem, the easy way is just to uninstall and re-install. The FG installer is Vista/Win7 compatible so she shouldn't have to do anything but double click the installer. Its never bad to un-install and re-install in this case anyway.

There is also the possibility that her Anti-Virus quarantined the FG updater or something when 2.9.1 came out so after un-installing she might want to download the FG installer in the download section of this site, watching to make sure it doesn't get quarantined and install using the downloaded installer.

If that doesn't work but she gets FG installed you can check the FG paths in the registry to see where they point (or if there are any keys).

[Dakadin]

Hmm... ok.. so how does she fix this? This might be a bit hard for me to explain remote. She's in Toronto and I'm in New Jersey so I can't actually lay hands on the machine. :(

You can try using one of the free programs that lets you control her machine remotely like TeamViewer or ShowMyPC.com.