PRB: Multiple "System Files Are Out of Date" Errors

When you install a Microsoft Visual Basic application, you may receive the following message:
After Windows restarts and you begin the installation again, the error message appears again.

NOTE: This occurs with either the Microsoft Visual Basic 5.0 Application Setup Wizard (ASW) or the Microsoft Visual Basic 6.0 Package and Deployment Wizard (PDW).

Both installation programs (ASW and PDW) use the same method to delay the replacement of in-use system files until reboot. For any system files that are in use, the new files are saved as temporary files in the Temp folder. In order to replace the existing files with the .tmp files, the system will use the Wininit.ini file on WIN 9x systems. On Windows NT and Windows 2000, the system will call the MoveFileEx function with the MOVEFILE_REPLACE_EXISTING flag. This function places the file replacement instructions in the following registry key: If something interferes with this replace and rename operation, these files are not updated. Therefore, once the computer reboots and restarts the installation program, the same error message appears.

There are a number of reasons why this can happen, but the two most common are as follows:

• The .tmp files are being deleted.
• The Temp folder is on a different drive or partition from the operating system. By default, the operating system is installed to either the Windows or Winnt folder.

The following are resolutions to this problem:

1. Copy the TEMP and TMP environment variables to a folder that is in the same drive partition as the Windows system files. To do this, open a command prompt window and type the following at the prompt:
   Set TMP=C:\TEMP
   Set TEMP=C:\TEMP
   This will save the TEMP and TMP environment variables to a folder named "Temp" that resides on the C: drive.
   
   NOTE: The folder must exist prior to carrying out these steps.
   
   Once these environment variables are set, the application should then install and continue past the message on reboot.
2. If your Autoexec.bat file contains the following line (or similar):
   If exists c:\temp\*.tmp del c:\temp\*.tmp
   comment it out by placing "REM" in front of it.
3. Disable any Anti-virus software (or other memory resident programs) and try running Setup again. Often the best way to accomplish this is to run setup in Safe Mode. It may also be necessary to copy all of the setup files to a temporary folder on the hard drive disk and run Setup.exe from there.
4. Leftover files from a failed Setup attempt can also cause this problem. If found, delete the msftqws.pdw subfolder and its contents from the Temp folder. Also look in the Windows or Winnt folder for Setup1.exe and any *.CAB files from previous installs, and delete them. This should be done after each failed install.
5. Some logon scripts can cause this problem, so try to run Setup before logging on to the network.
6. Make sure you are deploying the same file versions that you are using on your development machine. The wizards have a special folder where they look first for files to package. If found, a file is used from this source instead of the file your system is running.
   
   For Visual Basic 6.0, it is especially important to make sure that you are deploying the proper version of Mdac_Typ.exe. The version of this file should match the Reference to "Microsoft ActiveX Data Objects 2.x Library" in your project. The default locations for this folder are as follows:
   
   For Visual Basic 5.0:
   C:\Program Files\DevStudio\VB\setupkit\kitfil32\sys32
   For Visual Basic 6.0:
   C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\VB98\Wizards\PDWizard\Redist
7. The system files that may need to be updated are listed in the Bootstrap or Bootstrap Files section of the Setup.lst file created with your package. These files can also be installed separately from self-extracting files found on Microsoft's support web site. Please see the References section for information about obtaining these files.
8. You can also edit the Setup.lst file. Look in the Setup1 Files or Files section for files to be copied to either $(WinSysPath) or $(WinSysPathSysFile). For example, Msvcrt.dll and Mfc42.dll. You can copy these lines to the end of the Bootstrap or Bootstrap Files section. You must renumber these lines so that the File numbers are sequential, for example "File1=...", File2=..." and so on. If these lines are removed from their original section, the remaining lines must be renumbered to maintain a sequential list.

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article.

For additional information, click the article numbers below to view the articles in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: Visual Basic 5.0 Programmer's Guide, Chapter 17 "Distributing Your Applications"

Online Help for Microsoft Visual Basic, version 6.0