BC Window Not Displayed

[aussieboykie]

I have BC3 on a USB stick. It works fine on my laptop and on a W7 Pro desktop system but on a W7 Ultimate system on the same (multi boot) physical desktop system, starting BCompare.exe fails to bring up the BC window. Task Manager confirms that BCompare is running. The W7 Ultimate system itself is clean, as confirmed by a full MSE scan, and BC's behaviour is the only application oddity I'm aware of.

I appreciate that this is a bit of needle in a haystack situation but perhaps the developers could suggest ways and means of debugging based on their knowledge of the steps BC3 (latest version) normally takes to get to the point where the UI is displayed.

Regards, AB

[Chris]

Is the system clock set correctly for Windows 7? Sometimes if the system time is set way off, it can cause problems with BC's trial and license system preventing startup.

For your portable install, is your license key stored in the install folder as "BC3Key.txt"?

Does it help if you move your settings .xml files from the portable install folder to a different folder? This will make BC run with default settings instead of using your stored settings.

[aussieboykie]

Chris

The system clock is set correctly and the license key is in the install folder as BC3Key.txt. I did a complete reinstall of the portable just in case there was a settings problem so settings are pure vanilla. I haven't tried a full (non-portable) install yet. I prefer to minimise registry activity but in the interests of getting to the bottom of this I'll give it a go if all else fails.

I'm more inclined to believe there is some exotic Windows system file corruption behind this oddity. I have run SFC /SCANNOW a couple of times. Nothing leaps off the log but many of the log messages are not easy for the layman to fully understand.

Regards, AB

[Chris]

Do you see any error messages in the Windows Event Viewer?

[aussieboykie]

Good call. I hadn't thought to check but have now done so. There are no errors or warnings in the System Event log.

Regards, AB

[aussieboykie]

I just tried a regular (non portable) install on the W7 Ultimate system. Same result. No user interface window is shown when the application is started. BCompare shows up in Task Manager. Very strange indeed.

Regards, AB

[Aaron]

That is pretty odd. You can try running with a few different command line parameters to see if it provides different behavior, such as:
Bcompare.exe /qc file1 file2
Bcompare.exe /fv
Bcompare.exe @script.txt (with a blank script.txt file)

[aussieboykie]

Aaron

I tried command line parameters as you suggested and the result is always the same. I'm sure this is down to some corruption within a component of Windows. I was hoping that there might be a debug mode that would log the actions taken by BCompare.exe so we could pin down exactly where things are going wrong.

I'm guessing that BCompare uses standard Windows code/dialogs to display its main menu? Since there is no error message, maybe BCompare thinks that the menu has been successfully displayed and is waiting for the user to trigger the next event?

Regards, AB

[Aaron]

There isn't a specific debug mode for BC3, but you could always use a program such as Process Monitor to track any application:
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/s.../bb896645.aspx

*Please note that Process Monitor is not a Scooter Software program and is not supported by Scooter Software.

[aussieboykie]

Hello Aaron

I have a ProcMon extract filtered on BCompare.exe. Would you like to have a look at it? It's not too big (1.3MB).

Regards, AB

[Aaron]

Certainly. Feel free to email us at [email protected] (and please include a link back to this forum thread for our reference).

[aussieboykie]

Well, when all else failed I took an image back of my system and then performed an Upgrade/Repair. This has resolved the problem. BC3 now displays its UI correctly. I have no idea what the underlying problem was. With the exception of my BC3 issue everything else seemed to be working correctly.

Thanks to the Scooter team for your support.

Regards, AB