Before You Call Support

InstallShield 2026 » InstallScript Debugger

Try to isolate the problem by determining from your user exactly what is wrong. Are many of your customers reporting the problem, a few, or only this customer? Here are some areas to check in diagnosing your customer's problem:

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Has the user tried to install your software more than once? If not, ask the user to install it again on the same system. If there is still a problem, ask the user to try installing it on another system or on several, if possible. It is unreasonable to establish conclusions using only one system.

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Is the problem related to the distribution media? If you ship more than one type of media, ask the user to try the different types. This may help identify a disk problem or a drive problem. If the same problem occurs on both sets of disks, you have significantly narrowed down the problem. If you are confident there is nothing wrong with your setup, send the user another set of disks.

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Use brand-name distribution media whenever possible. If you had disk problems before, you know it does not pay to cut corners when you buy disks. A good disk costs only ten or fifteen cents more than a disk of marginal quality, but the difference between a happy customer and an annoyed one is all the difference in the world.

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If you determine that your customer's problem occurs on only one system, you need to find out how that system differs from others.

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Ask the customer how much memory and system resources are free. If the system resources are extremely low, it is possible some other program is using them. Ask the user to exit Windows to free system resources. If there is ample memory and system resources free after restarting Windows, ask the user to try the setup program again.

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Determine what version of Windows the user is running. Setup.exe typically requires a minimum of 16 MB of RAM on the system. However, it is possible that if you are using an extensive script and large bitmaps, you will require more RAM. If your customer is pushing these limits, they will need more RAM.

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Look at the Config.sys and Autoexec.bat files. Ask your customer to send you a copy of these files. If the Config.sys has many entries, and your customer is loading a lot of programs to specific locations, this could cause problems. Special memory managers and drivers with a lot of parameters can cause problems. Use only the most basic drivers. Ask the customer to remove as many drivers as possible from their Config.sys. In general, the more lines that you find in the Config.sys, the greater the chance for conflict. Have them temporarily comment out (rem) all unnecessary statements and reboot the system.