ActivPrimary

[Michael]

Hello all,

I'm having some serious problems with Promethean's ActivPrimary software. This is happening across a whole range of hardware. When I run the installation it errors with the following message:

1608: Unable to create Installdriver instance. Return code: -2147221164

My only success is by formatting a machine and then it works, which is a little strange because I have no problems installing other software, just this package.

I tried phoning Promethean earlier and it just rings and rings and rings. Fantastic first class support there. I have e-mailed them, but if anyone else has this problem it would be useful to know how you got things working, many thanks!

[CHR1S]

Not an answer to the problem but their support are pretty slow... I get one email reply a day to my current problem

[Michael]

Just as well I support just the one Promethean school, the rest are all Smart.

[BJG]

...seems similar errors can be associated with privileges and conflicting background tasks among other things. Maybe ensure you're logging on as local admin and quit any virus scanners etc...

[Michael]

...seems similar errors can be associated with privileges and conflicting background tasks among other things. Maybe ensure you're logging on as local admin and quit any virus scanners etc...

I have tried installing from a network share, CD, memory stick as the domain admin and local admin, and I have the same problems. I did also stop all Sophos AV services and this made no difference either.
The machines are fine as everything else works and today I pushed out Flash 10 MSI which installed straight away.

[BJG]

Hmm..baffling mix of people reporting this same error in different scenarios, without too many clear answers. Doesn't seem specifically an ActivPrimary issue though. One general verdict is "Typically this error indicates that the Installshield engine is broken. Not sure what version the installation requires, but most installation routines come with the necessary engine. For complete troubleshooting information, please see this link provided directly from InstallShield.com"

Q107052: ERRDOC: Run-Time Error 1608

[Michael]

Thanks for the link BJG. It's interesting you mentioned the InstallShield because I came to the same conclusion. The link is dead at the moment unfortunately.

Ideally I need a copy of ActivPrimary which is an MSI or just anything which doesn't use InstallShield. It is frustrating as I've spent many hours trying to fix this

[witch]

Although I dislike the Prometheans I have in one school, I must admit that the support has always been good and they have answered the phones quickly.
I havent come across the problem you have got with ActivPrimary but I have come across it in different circumstances and it was an InstallShield problem. I think I deleted and reinstalled as resolution No 3 on the link (it works here).
Good Luck

[dtakias]

Never seen that error, been using activ primary 2 and 3 + resources on both windows and mac osx. Except a few issues, It's been generally fine for me.

[Michael]

BJG's link is now working. Now according that to article Installshield 12 should definitely fix the problem. ActivPrimary comes with ISScript8.Msi.

I can't find ISScript12.Msi anywhere All I have found is this. If anyone has a link to this MSI it would be much appreciated.

[Michael]

After continually battling my way to resolve this, the school were entitled to a free update of ActivPrimary 3, which comes in MSI format (for the most part).

ActivPrimary 3.7.19 MSI (but requires a serial during install)
ActivDriver 4.1.14 MSI
ActivPrimary Documents MSI
ActivPrimary Help Files MSI
ActivPrimary Resources MSI

By default I couldn't deploy or do a silent install of ActivPrimary 3.7.19 but here's how I got around the problem

Download Orca and choose Open when prompted. The cab file opened with WinRAR on my machine. Select a file called:

Orca_Msi.FD66E721_5AA0_41BC_AA26_1EC8F7FA1175

And rename this to Orca.msi. You can now install this application as normal. Next, locate your copy of ActivPrimary 3 MSI. I'm using the latest 3.7.19.
If you need the MSI, download the exe from Promethean's website and begin the installation. When you get to the welcome screen, click Start > Run and type %temp%. Locate the MSI, copy it, then close the installation. You now have your MSI.

Open up Orca and open the ActivPrimary 3 MSI within Orca. Go to Edit > Find and enter PIDKEY. In the column to the right entitled Text, remove the existing information:

{20}[PIDTemplate]

And enter your 20 digit serial number in here, without spaces. Now save changes, close Orca and try running the file. You should find the serial number information is pre-populated You can now install ActivPrimary 3 without having to enter a serial number manually or you can deploy it with Active Directory and it should work. The additional applications like ActivDriver etc should all install silently without modification.

Now the only problem I have is with ActivPrimary Collections/Videos in *.as3a format. There doesn't appear to be a method of automating the installation of these, unless someone knows how?
The only workaround I have found is to install them all manually on one machine, which installs them to:

C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents

I could in theory simply copy this folder to other machines. Any guidance on this would be appreciated.