Problem with macromedia Contribute after Macromedia 8 instal

[tosca925]

After doing a full install of Macromedia 8 on our RIS image and deploying to some of our PC,s we have started getting an annoying problem keep happening.

 

When you try to launch any programme, right click a file or open a file, most times the Macromedia Contribute install box pops up. It is if its trying torun a install of some type, it taakes aorund a minute to go through its proccess or you need to click cancel around 3 times. After you do this your programme or file opens. If you then open another program it runs again most times.

 

Any ideas? (we think its happening on both mandaatory and roaming profiel users.

[tosca925]

Anyone?

[Norphy]

The same happened to us. Oddly enough, it never happened to my user accounts but did for practically everyone elses. I never found a fix so eventually I just uninstalled Contribute.

[Ric_]

does it stick stuff in the profile? you would need to then update the default user profile and/or your mandatory/roaming profiles.

[bazM]

we had the same problem too... to get around it we installed the macromedia stuff under one user account, once installed run all the stuff under that user account then copy that user account to the deafult user, so every one who logs on afterwards, their account would be created from the default user account and hence all the macromedia stuff worked fine.

[ICTNUT]

It's trying to do stuff with the printer settings. If you are a user with some elevated user rights is seems to do this once in the background silently but if you are a restricted user (like students) it goes trhough the install process and then comes up with "you are not allowed to modufy the printers settings, please see you administrator" yada yada yada.

 

I have trawled the macromedia / adobe webistes for a solution but none yet. I have even phoned the support line for macromedia, what a waste of time that was.

[tosca925]

If we remove the Macromedia Contribute I dont think any one will miss it, as far as i know no one uses it anyway.

 

Trouble is its part of a image, is there anyway a script ccan be run on start up and uninstall it?

[meastaugh1]

I believe this is caused by component: RegUserItems.D404042C_B1B4_413E_B1C0_526D0BBE80E3

 

I worked around it by creating a new child feature in my transform, then associating the component with this new feature. This will mean that when installer starts checking keypaths when you trigger it through the advertised entry point (context menu), the keypath is of this component is not checked, and the unpleasant/unnecessary repair isn't performed.

[Heebeejeebee]

Sorry to resurrect this old thread but we're having the same problem here. If I try BazM's solution (first thing I did anyway) when our users log on they get the message "you are not allowed to modufy the printers settings, please see you administrator" still.

 

Users with elevated privileges (temporarily setup on a test account) don't get the message, but they get an extra "Flashpaper" printer (copy 1).

 

We need to create PDF content for the DiDA course.

 

Personally I'd ditch Contribute 'cos it's a waste of space and use PDFCreator instead but for 2 reasons:

 

1) One of our most whiney IT teachers insists that we use it and 2) PDFCreator seems to have a problem in that it will not create landscape PDFs. All landscape documents are created as portrait despite changing the settings in the printer.

 

I wonder if anyone can help with this trivial but annoying issue.

 

Forgot to mention it's installed via GPO and I'm not sure how to try meastaugh1's suggestion/solution.

 

Cheers

 

HBJB

[tomscaper]

We have the same problem here, in the end we just had to remove it.

I am the same i wouldnt even want to use it but there is a teacher who went on a course using it and now wants it to be put back on to use.

 

To meastaugh1

 

If you could explain a little bit more about your work around as i wouldnt know where to start. or if anyone else has an idea what he is talking about mabye you can explain.

 

it would be a great help as this has been a problem for a long time now.

 

Tom

[meastaugh1]

Hi Tom,

 

Are you familiar with modifying MSIs? If so, you can create a new child feature of the FlashPaper feature. Then associate the component RegUserItems.D404042C_B1B4_413E_B1C0_526D0BBE80E3 with your new child feature.

 

If not, let me know and I'll post up the transform.

 

Mike

[Heebeejeebee]

I'm on the learning curve or making my own mst files. I've done a couple with orca but never had to add a child feature. A copy of the transform would help me understand what's going on I think. Thanks.

 

BTW I've just found out that the file I was testing PDFCreator on for landscape was a dodgy one and have tried several new ones with 100% success.

 

If I could get out of using Contribute I would but I fear that it's now too late to "teach the teachers".

 

Cheers

 

HBJB

[meastaugh1]

I'm on the learning curve or making my own mst files. I've done a couple with orca but never had to add a child feature. A copy of the transform would help me understand what's going on I think. Thanks.

 

It's just a case of adding an entry to the feature and featurecomponents table. See attached.

macromedia_contribute_311_fix.zip

[tosca925]

Forgot to update this post, I used a VB script to remove contirbute on certain machines and it works ok for us now.

[tomscaper]

Thanks for that meastaugh1

 

I am going to try it right now, hopefully this will sort all my problems out, so how did you come to work it out anyway.

To be honest i havnt a clue what it does, just that it does it.

 

Tom

[Norphy]

I used a startup script with a WMI filter to check to see if it was installed to take it off. The WMI Filter is:

 

select * from Win32_SoftwareFeature where ProductName LIKE "%Macromedia Contribute%"

 

on the ROOT\CIMv2 namespace. The startup script is:

 

%systemroot%\system32\msiexec.exe /x "\\ghostsrv\install\Macromedia Studio MX 8\Disk 1\FSCOMMAND\Macromedia_Contribute_3.11.msi" /q

 

Obviously you'd need to adapt the location of the contribute.msi to where ever you store it.

[Heebeejeebee]

Thanks meastaugh1, it worked a treat.

 

I've still recommended to our FM that I move to PDFCreator, but she says she'll have to ask all the teachers if they want to move and I can predict the answer.

 

Cheers

 

HBJB

[meastaugh1]

so how did you come to work it out anyway.

From memory, I just examined the errors in event viewer which display the component(s) the installer is attempting to repair. I didn't spend much time investigating why Windows Installer was just hanging indefinitely due to time constraints.

[tomscaper]

well your fix did the job that installer error doesnt come up anymore, only problem is that i have a new problem now, say i write a word docuemnt, and then try to convert it to a pdf, it sends to the pdf printer but it just stays and produces an error in the print job.

 

its always the same as soon as you fix one problem another arises.

 

Thanks again

 

Tom

[meastaugh1]

Under the Advanced tab of the flashpaper "printer", check whether advanced print features are enabled? If so, try disabling.

[tomscaper]

i will try that, if that is the problem, does that mean i will have to do that manually on every computer.

[meastaugh1]

No, you can set that in the transform as well because it's just a registry key.

[tomscaper]

you wouldnt happen to know which registry key that would be do you.

[meastaugh1]

yep, I think so. Did unchecking resolve the problem?

[tomscaper]

hi

 

i logged on as admin and it let me convert a file to a pdf without changing any settings.

i changed them and tried logging on as a student but the same error came up.