Fresh install dOpus 9.1 on new Vista installation problems

Hello,

I haven't contacted support yet, but wanted to post my problem here, as because I could be doing something wrong.

I reinstalled my Laptop ( Dell Latitude D610 ) With Windows Vista Enterprise RTM
After that I installed the following software in this order:

  • Microsoft Office 2007 Enterprise
  • Microsoft Office 2007 Groove
  • Microsoft Office 2007 Dutch Language Files
  • WinRAR
  • Acrobat Standard 8.0
  • Symantec Antivirus 10.2
  • Mozilla Firefox
  • Logitech Setpoint

At that point I joined my machine to the domain and installed Directory Opus afterwards.
UAC is active and than I have the following problem:
When logging in as a user the desktop is not shown
When logging in as a user with administrative rights the desktop is not shown
When logging in as "Administrator" ( local enabled user ) the desktop is shown.
When disabled UAC and logging in as a user with administrative rights the desktop is shown.
When I re enable UAC I again cannot login to the laptop.

When the desktop is not shown NOTHING works. Not even task manager.

Before the fresh install I was using Directory Opus 9.1 without a problem. The only difference is that before I had upgraded several times from earlier versions without reinstalling my laptop.

Does anyone know of I missed something or if I have to change something?

In the Eventlog the following error was shown:

ID: 4006
Source: WinLogon
Type: warning
The Windows logon process has failed to spawn a user application. Application name: . Command line parameters: c:\windows\system32\userinit.exe.

This was the only thing I could find.

After this i reformated the laptop and started again. Now after each installation I restarted my laptop and tried if I could login to the laptop. Everything worked until I installed Directory Opus.

No I am not using Directory Opus at the moment... And the laptop is working as it should.

Is there anything which I can try, which I should do?

Regards,

Bas Steelooper

Additional Information:

I am using the 32 Bit version as I have an 32 bit Vista installation on a 32 Bit processor.

Regards,

Bas Steelooper

This being your first few posts I'm curious if your Opus installation file might have been tampered with. Make sure you download the Opus installer from the official GPSoft website...

You might want to search for userinit in the registry and see what it's loading on your system. I think it's a common enough module for trojans to use to load up malware.

These suggestions are based on my assumption that Opus should not be directly responsible for anythign hanging userinit and the winlogon process. To my knowledge, the only thing Opus does at startup is load dopus.exe process, and if dopuslib.dll is registered, then it may get loaded in as well... easy enough to troubleshoot either of those processes if the stuff above is ok...

Hello,

This is indeed one of my first post in this forum.
I have been using Directory Opus for about 6 years now and never had any problems.
The installer I used came from the gpsoftware website ( gpsoft.com.au/files/Opus9/DOpusInstall.exe ) minutes before installing it. There was not yet been an internet connection other than Windows Update. No other CD / DVD's where entered to the system different as the one I have used the last time.

The UserInit process from the WinLogin Service is the process which starts the network and the user shell. The user shell contains the user installed applications / services such as Adobe Acrobat Starter, Windows Search, Logitech Setpoint and Directory Opus.

The problem is that When directory opus is installed the system becomes unresponsive. It took me 5 reinstalls to find the above findings. It seems that a part of Directory Opus needs elevated rights to start, or elevated rights to access. When UAC is turned off there is no problem, when it is turned on the problem exists.

When I have time later this week I will do some additional testing such as granting my UNelevated user full control on the registry keys and the file locations, and see what the results are.

I was posting here hoping that someone else has had this issue and knew a workaround.

As for spyware, Trojans and other malware.... The way to get that is to go to inappropriate websites, use warez or cracks and stuff.
Because I believe that when someone makes a very nice piece of software he should get credit for it, I don't use any illegal software. The laptop which this problem is on is the laptop which I use to do my job, and this laptop is almost everyday connected to a clients network. I cannot afford to bring any malicious content into a clients network, as that would be very bad for business.

Regards,

Bas Steelooper

This is the first report about such a problem that I know of, and I don't have a Vista machine that's in a domain to test it myself, so I'm not sure what's going on. Best way to trouble-shoot it is to remove the parts of Opus involved with startup and hooks into Explorer and other programs.

[ul][li]Delete the two (or one if you don't have Desktop Double-Click enabled) Opus entries from HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run for the user(s) you're testing against.

(You can also remove or re-add both those registry values via Opus's Preferences. The dopusrt.exe one is set/removed under Launching Opus -> From The Desktop while the dopus.exe value is set/removed under Launching Opus -> Startup.)
[/li]
[li]Try disabling Explorer Replacement mode via Preferences -> Launching Opus -> Explorer Replacement for the user(s) you're testing against.

(If you need to disable Explorer Replacement via the Registry because then there's a FAQ which covers the changes. They're pretty simple.)

If that solves it then it's possible something is trying to launch a folder window during startup.
[/li]
[li]Try unregistering the two main Opus DLLs. Open an Administrator Command Prompt in the Opus Program Files directory and run regsvr32 /u dopushlp.dll and regsvr32 /u dopuslib.dll -- To put things back as they were run the same things but without the /u.
[/li]
[li]Unregister the dopusx64.exe helper (this is used on 32-bit as well I think) by running dopusx64.exe /unregserver from an Administrator Command Prompt in the Opus Program Files directory. To undo that change later, run dopusx64.exe /regserver[/li][/ul]
After doing the above steps Opus will, as far as I can think, just be some executable files on your harddrive that shouldn't be able to cause any problems. The desktop-double-click hook and the global-hotkey hook won't be running if neither of the Opus .exe processes are running and the Shell context menu extension should be gone if the two DLLs are unregistered. That only leaves registry changes that the installer may have made or things I can't think of.

Let us know what you find and that should tell us where to look next.

Feel free to try Leo's suggestions but I'd be surprised if Opus was responsible. No part of Opus requests or needs admin access (unless you have specifically set it to via the Properties on the executable files.)

If you plug the error message from your event log into google you get this Microsoft KB article which has some things you can try.

There's also this, but as you've been trying UAC stuff I assume you're already come across it:

avianwaves.com/Blogs/Tech/de ... -Domain-Ad

Hello Nudel,

I haden't found that one yet. I'll go and see the group policys and check the other groups.

I'll keep you posted.

Regards,

Bas Steelooper

Hello,

I tried today to install Directory Opus again.
I did the following:

  • Created restore point ( didn't feel like completely reinstalling my laptop )
  • Checked the contents of the users and the admin group
  • Installed Directory Opus
  • Checked the permissions on the folders and files ( users read )
  • Checked the registry security settings ( my user has read in HKLM and full control in HKCU )
  • Rebooted the machine
  • logged in as a local administrator
  • checked the contents of the groups ( Users and admin ) There only sids were shown.
  • connected manually to the domain
  • the sids were translated to usernames and groupnames
  • logged off as the administrative user
  • logged on as my domain account
  • Elevation prompt was given about firewall settings ( Allow DOpus access to the internet )
  • And my desktop was shown.

It seems that my problem is solved. But I realy don't know what is different as before. Other that I did a lot of checking, which gave Windows more time to start all processes.

Regards,

Bas Steelooper

Maybe that's what was causing the issue? If that firewall/elevation prompt appears before your desktop appears then maybe it's possible for it to appear too early during the login process that Windows isn't ready to show it. Seems odd, though, since Windows shouldn't be running user-mode applications until the OS is ready for them to do things.

I'm guessing that the firewall prompt was due to Opus checking for a new version. Once you've unblocked it once the same operation won't cause a prompt in the future so the problem should be gone for you.

Just to keep you posted, and be helpful to other users with similar problems

The problem hasn't returned. I did some checking and debugging.

  • Fresh install of Windows Vista
  • Joined domain
  • Checked the Admin and Users group All was ok ( such I thought )
  • Installed dOpus
  • reboot

Same problem

I checked my domain account which I was installing with, and it seemed that this user was not member of the domain users group, ergo it was not a normal user on my Vista machine. Added the account to domain users, rebooted the laptop, and the problem is gone.
I did get the prompt for unblocking Internet Access again.

Indeed it was for an update check.
Created a policy allowing firewall exception for dOpus

retried all again.

After these two changes no more problems......

Thanks for the update! It's good to know exactly what to suggest if anyone else comes across this problem.