Darndest thing ever - Howler 11 trying to install Autocad 2017

[Zyrena]

I came across a strange issue when trying to run the program. I have had other versions installed in the past and upgrading from 10 to 11 I knew to run the program initially as admin to set it as default.

All went well I thought but then the weird thing happened. I have the student version of Autodesk 2017 installed on the computer and when the initialization screen appeared it brought a setup dialog to install Autocad 2017.

I've been searching online everywhere and I did see one other case where someone ran into a similar issue and they were advised to clear the temp folder as sometimes there can be a mixup there. I have completed that a few times, uninstalled and reinstalled more than three times, cleaned the registry a few times, and it's still causing the same issue.

Even more strange perhaps is having tried going back to howler 10, running the program once again as admin to register that, that's also having the same issue when it ran perfectly before.

So does anyone have any suggestions of how to fix this. Please? :D

[thebest3d]

My suspicion is that the AutoCad installation has messed with the PATH variable where it causes an attempt to run our Setup.exe to force the setup from Autocad instead. I sort of remember seeing something like that long ago, unrelated to Howler, with other installations, and I don't recall if it was also with Autocad interfering in this manner but it was something similar and had to do with the variable that contains a list of system and local folders where things could run from when you run just the command without its full path.

On Linux/Unix it's the PATH variable or at least it was back then.

Ok, so that's all I can tink of as far as the root cause is concerned. You could test that theory and uninstall AutoCad, and even if it left the path variable corrupted, as long as the setup.exe from Autocad is gone, that one would not run anymore and there's a better chance it would run ours.

Can you see if the files from Howler are already copied into the final target location? .../Program Files (x86)/Steam/steamapps/common/PD_Howler_11 for example on C: or whatever drive you chose?

If you have that, look for the Setup subfolder in it. You may be able to run the installer from there too directly.

[thebest3d]

open a cmd window and type PATH
it will show the current path of executable directories, i.e. where does Windows look for a file to execute when only the filename is specified. If you see Autocad's path in there at the beginning of the semicolon-separated list, that could be the culprit. Maybe you can carefully redefine the path to exclude Autocad from it, run the installation, and redfine the path with Autocad in it, if that's really needed. (I doubt it is)

[thebest3d]

you can (carefully!) define a new value to path by entering path=...... I would recommend first selecting and copying the current path though, paste it into a notepad to make sure you have it in the clipboard.

remove the autocad portion from the path or place that one at the end of the path. Each item in the path is separated by a semicolon.

I don't know if the new PATH will take effect only in a new process. Your existing Steam task might still be using the old, and installation might still suffer from the old. Perhaps exit Steam and relaunch it to try again, see also if you launch another cmd tool whether PATH shows the new path. I tested it simple by setting it to the current pasted value plus ";hello"... oh and it doesn't seem to propagate to the new cmd shell. Sorry. ignore tis.

[xyzt]

I remember Howler 9.6 giving me that same problem with AutoCAD.

[thebest3d]

do you still have AutoCad on your PC? Can you check the PATH variable?

[Zyrena]

Hi! Okay I've been looking up the info and here it is.

Firstly: Howler 11 has installed and I am able to get into the install directory to reach the actual setup file. Rather than letting steam install it I ran that directly to allow it to install to the default location. C:/Program Files/Steam (I believe it is). Anyway still the same issue with that.

Secondly: Autocad is still installed. The path shows 'C:\Program Files\Common Files\Autodesk Shared\;C:\Program Files (x86)\Autodesk\Backburner\'

I've been trying to find something in the registry that may be causing the issue. But so much to look through there it's likely to take ages. If nothing else works I'll try uninstalling Autocad tho, but I'll try all other possible fixes beforehand.

[Zyrena]

Originally posted by southpawami:

I remember Howler 9.6 giving me that same problem with AutoCAD.

How did you eventually fix it? Can you remember?

It's getting to the point where I'm thinking it may be best to completely uninstall Autocad.

[thebest3d]

Perhaps try this? Perhaps need to clean the temp folder. I don't know exactly how Inno installer works, but perhaps extracts to the temp folder, where there could be overlap with older files, if they can't be remove for some reason.

I would also see if the instalation of AutoCad left a temporary folder with its setup.exe file. It may pick that one if the path lets it. If you rename the setup.exe from any Autocad temp folders it might skip it.

Perhaps check if you can find all the setup.exe files in the path locations or anywhere on the drives and see if any of them are in Autocad-related folders. Temporary rename them or remove them, see if it goes past it.

[Zyrena]

Originally posted by thebest3d:

Perhaps this? Perhaps need to clean the temp folder. I don't know exactly how Inno installer works, but perhaps extracts to the temp folder, where there could be overlap with older files, if they can't be remove for some reason.

I would also see if the instalation of AutoCad left a temporary folder with its setup.exe file. It may pick that one if the path lets it. If you rename the setup.exe from any Autocad temp folders it might skip it.

Perhaps check if you can find all the setup.exe files in the path locations or anywhere on the drives and see if any of them are in Autocad-related folders. Temporary rename them or remove them, see if it goes past it.

Closing unnecessary processes so I could fully clear the temp folder caused the desktop computer that I'm having the issue with to fail to load. I think I need a good long sleep before continuing to try to fix this before I only make it worse. LOL.

But thanks for the assistance. I'll get back to you tomorrow when hopefully I'm more alert.

[Zyrena]

Originally posted by thebest3d:

Perhaps try this? Perhaps need to clean the temp folder. I don't know exactly how Inno installer works, but perhaps extracts to the temp folder, where there could be overlap with older files, if they can't be remove for some reason.

Got it back up and running again.

Cleaning the temp folder didn't fix the issue but as I wasn't using Autocad at the moment I decided on the uninstall route.

Howler 11 is working now. And honestly I'd prefer using this than to learn the former program. :)

[thebest3d]

Glad to hear you have your priorities straight :-) lol

and you know, now that Howler is running, you can probably reinstall Autocad and run that too.

[thebest3d]

I would in that case keep an eye on paths where Autocad installs or extracts temp files and setup.exe - see if that's the one that get's re-invoked when trying to install Autocad. It typically can happen when Autocad changes the Path or other aspects of the system that affect our installer.

Can you tell me exactly which version of AutoCad it is? Or just the current latest? I might give it a try to see if I can find out too.

[xyzt]

Originally posted by thebest3d:

I would in that case keep an eye on paths where Autocad installs or extracts temp files and setup.exe - see if that's the one that get's re-invoked when trying to install Autocad. It typically can happen when Autocad changes the Path or other aspects of the system that affect our installer.

Can you tell me exactly which version of AutoCad it is? Or just the current latest? I might give it a try to see if I can find out too.

I had older versions of AutoCAD, thebest3d. This PD Howler and AutoCAD installation problem has been around for years with years of AutoCAD versions.

[Zyrena]

Originally posted by thebest3d:

I would in that case keep an eye on paths where Autocad installs or extracts temp files and setup.exe - see if that's the one that get's re-invoked when trying to install Autocad. It typically can happen when Autocad changes the Path or other aspects of the system that affect our installer.

Can you tell me exactly which version of AutoCad it is? Or just the current latest? I might give it a try to see if I can find out too.

Sure! It's the 2017 edition of Autocad. What with the free student license and such it's easy to upgrade to the latest that way. LOL.

[Zyrena]

Reinstalled Autocad and both work fine now. :)