SU and XP Home Edition Problems (very long)

[Ken Salisbury]

I have been on a real journey with SU. I reported my initial problems are described in the following thread:
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=35533

Since that time I was contacted via e-mail from Jim Holman (Google SU Support) who saw my post on the Googlle SU Forum. Jim has really been great in trying to resolve the problems. He even contacted me by phone after swaping numerous e-mails. There appears to be a "bug" in the Google SU when using Windows XP Home Edition. At least that is the present opinion of Jim and the Google QA folks.

I downloaded the 8hr version of SU 5.0 and the problems encountered with Google SU do not occur.

I generated a new User Account ("papa")for my computer with Admin permissions as part of the troubleshooting process. The result of that action allowed me to sucessfully download and launch SU. Now the real kicker is the original Admin User (ken) for my computer will not launch SU successfully.

I have been through many tests working with Google Support to determine what the real "bug" is.

AS a result of Jim's latest e-mail:


<DIV dir=ltr style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt" From: Jim Holman - Google SU</DIV><DIV dir=ltr style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt" Date: 05/04/06 14:34:39</DIV><DIV dir=ltr style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt" To: The Old Rebel Workshop</DIV><DIV dir=ltr style="FONT-SIZE: 11pt" Subject: re[4]</DIV>

Ken,
The QA team had one more thought. Maybe the original installation of Google SketchUp was corrupt because it install was done on the Ken login w/out a password being used. It only takes a few moments to:

1. Login as Ken using the password (I am assuming this would be the 1st time the install was done using a login w/ a password)
2. Unintall & reinstall Google SketchUp

Fixed?

Best regards
Jim Holman
SketchUp support
Google Inc.



I ran this test on my system this morning and reported that to Google:


Jim,

This is not the first time I downloaded SU using Ken w/password.

I however, I did it all over again as follows with the results as indicated.

1, Uninstalled SU
2. Rebooted
3. Logged on as Ken w/password.
4. Downloaded SU
5. Installed SU

With Ken as logged on user:

6. Initiated "open" from desktop shortcut. Result: bug splat.
7. initiated "run as" using ken w/pw. Result: bug splat
8. Initiated "run as" using current user (ken). Result: launched SU with error pop-up: Failed to create dmp file: C:\Docum~1\Ken\Local~1\Temp\SketchUpMiniK9TD2872.d mp(error 5).
9. Initiated "run as" using papa w/pw. Result: launches for only about 1 second and then bug splat.

10. Switched user to papa.

With papa as logged on user:

11. Open SU. Result: Launches fine w/ Tip of The day Pop-up
12. Initiated "run as" using papa w/pw. Result: Launches fine w/Tip Of The day Pop up
13. Initiated "run as" using ken w/pw. Result: Bug Splat

I hope this helps your folks in determining what the bug is. If I can do anything else please feel free to let me know.

Regards,

Ken

I thought I should pass this along to the SU users here in the event anyone else was having problems with SU + XP Home. Google Support folks will be monitoring SMC Design Forum to make themselves aware of problems while they try to determine what the "bug" is.

THE SAGA CONTINUES - I will update this thread as I learn more.

[Michael Ballent]

Ken they want you to use the a password to login into your Windows XP home machine? Why would a password mechanism be different than just being an admin on your box without a password? The security sub-system for your box aside from the password would be the same. Windows will let you in once you enter your password after that all the ACL stuff, well should be independant from entering a password or not. I am assuming you are using FAT32 partition(s) on your hard drive and not NTFS (I do not believe NTFS is available to XP home but I could be wrong) NTFS is MUCH more secure (a good or bad thing) than FAT32.

One thing I would look at is to compare the processes that are running under both accounts. Boot the box, right click on your tool bar, go to task manager (or my little short cut CTRL-SHIFT-ESC holding down each like the CTRL-ALT-DEL sequence) and compare the processes (click on the processes tab) that are running under each account, there is a view all users check box that will list all the processes running on the machine. Try to see if there is something that is running under one ID that is not running under the other.

[Randall Woolbright]

Ken, For SU's and your reference, I've had the paid version installed on one computer since late last year and recently installed the free GSU version on a laptop at home, both using XP. Absolutely no problems or bugs here. They are both Dell's.

[Ken Salisbury]

One thing I would look at is to compare the processes that are running under both accounts. Boot the box, right click on your tool bar, go to task manager (or my little short cut CTRL-SHIFT-ESC holding down each like the CTRL-ALT-DEL sequence) and compare the processes (click on the processes tab) that are running under each account, there is a view all users check box that will list all the processes running on the machine. Try to see if there is something that is running under one ID that is not running under the other.

No clues found here.

By the way -- SU Pro runs fine no matter which user is on the box. So the bug is unique to GSU.