I'm working with the following:
Docker for Windows v20.10.11
Docker running in Windows container mode
mcr.microsoft.com/windows:1903 base image
Proprietary application installed on top of this base image
Each year we create a Docker image with the latest version of our company's software. However this year's version behaves differently. Host machine installation runs fine. Containerized installation fails to run in certain situations. I can start the application as a simple EXE, for example using the Docker run command. The app will start and show up in "tasklist". However I can't start the app via the COM API, which is a critical requirement. The problem appears to be COM related. Normally we can create COM objects for our software just like for any other application. For example, IE returns a COM object just fine:
Creating these objects for our application works outside containers. However inside the container, our latest installation gives this error:
Access permissions appear to be ok. I tried a couple tests to prove this. First I can install other software like MS Word into a container and create COM objects for that:
Second I tried retrieving + modifying the application's DACL in PowerShell.
Changing access masks or trustees can cause an Access Denied error:
This also appears to confirm the access permissions were Ok by default.
Next I made sure COM is aware of the application. This appears to be fine. I get the same result on host machine and container when running this PS script:
gci HKLM:\Software\Classes -ea 0| ? {$.PSChildName -match '^\w+.\w+$' -and
(gp "$($.PSPath)\CLSID" -ea 0)} | ft PSChildName
The application shows up just like any other. The details show up fine when querying by AppID. LocalServer32 points to the correct EXE:
Some other things I tried:
Querying registry keys. There are 7 keys created when installing our software. These appear identical on host machine install and container install.
Even though permissions appear fine, I still tried logging into the container as alternate users. For example "nt authority\system" is another virtual admin user. I also changed the password of the "builtin\administrator" user to enable logging in with that one. Lastly tried creating new users entirely and adding them to the Administrators user group. All these attempts had the same errors as "builtin\containeradministrator" (default user).
A minor check was ensuring CMD.exe / Powershell is running as x64:
Re-registering the DLLs associated with the installation using regsvr32.
Starting from different base images. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/virtualization/windowscontainers/manage-containers/container-base-images. The full Win Server base image behaves exactly the same way regarding errors. The smaller Win Server Core base image is even more problematic, as I can't even start the app's EXE manually using that base. Lastly I tried other tags of the full Windows base image such as 20H2 and 2004. Same result from those. Multiarch or x64 makes no difference.
Included the "Ogawa hack" which was historically needed to make MS Office apps function correctly with COM: https://stackoverflow.com/a/1680214/7991646. It could be necessary for other COM apps too, but didn't help with my specific installation.
Is there anything else I can do to diagnose or solve this COM issue?
There are several things to consider:
The Considerations for server-side Automation of Office article states the following:
Microsoft does not currently recommend, and does not support, Automation of Microsoft Office applications from any unattended, non-interactive client application or component (including ASP, ASP.NET, DCOM, and NT Services), because Office may exhibit unstable behavior and/or deadlock when Office is run in this environment.
If you are building a solution that runs in a server-side context, you should try to use components that have been made safe for unattended execution. Or, you should try to find alternatives that allow at least part of the code to run client-side. If you use an Office application from a server-side solution, the application will lack many of the necessary capabilities to run successfully. Additionally, you will be taking risks with the stability of your overall solution.
The When CoCreateInstance returns 0x80080005 (CO_E_SERVER_EXEC_FAILURE) page describes possible reasons.
If many COM+ applications run under different user accounts that are specified in the This User property, the computer cannot allocate memory to create a new desktop heap for the new user. Therefore, the process cannot start. See Error when you start many COM+ applications: Error code 80080005 -- server execution failed for more information.
Finally, you may find a similar thread here helpful, see Server execution failed (Exception from HRESULT: 0x80080005 (CO_E_SERVER_EXEC_FAILURE)).
I created an electron app which can only be started as admin, because it needs it for various command executions. Now it prompts that it must be started as admin.
This question was very helpful.
Now I want to start it with admin privileges right away so windows asks for the acception. It shouldn't be able to start the app without admin privileges.
I tried adding --win32metadata.requested-execution-level=requireAdministrator, but then it writes an error on startup (always):
The application has failed to start because the side by side configuration is incorrect.
How can I achive this with the electron packager?
Your electron-packager code looks fine, and the switch works for me.
This can happen if you are missing Visual C++ Runtimes, or if they're corrupted. Try installing them from here and try again.
If that doesn't help, then you should dig into the Event Viewer, which should come installed on your machine, and see what the specific error is. This page has some additional tips on troubleshooting this issue.
When my program successfully installs via Inno Setup, how do I run a URL in the background? I want to just load a tracking pixel (or a postback) which says that my program was installed.
I'm aware than in the [Run] section, I can run a .url file with the flag "runhidden", but as far as I know that won't do what I need it to. Am I wrong about that, or are there better option?
Thank you.
There is no TCP/IP related Support Functions, defined by default.
You could build this functionality into a DLL and call it from you Install Script.
This is done installation's where Activation is required to make the program work.
However, I would just launch a browser window using the [Run] section that contains "Getting Started" information. You can then track hits to that page.
I am thinking the modified dlls will create a log file some where in the remote system so I can open it later after load test but all I found was a log file in $(SystemRoot)\Temp\EQATECProfilerLogs saying nothing other than app started. Do I need to install EQATEC profiler on the remote server?
Thanks
This scenario is adressed in this EQATEC forum thread:
A profiled app needs to be told when we want it to produce its profiling report. For plain apps this is simple and has therefore been automated: when Main exits. But your web-service has no similar "exit point" - it just keeps on running until you kill it.
Therefore you have to explicitly/manually tell the profiled web-service to take a snapshot. The easiest way is to simply run the profiler on the same machine as the web-service is running on: when the web-service is starting up it will automatically connect to the profiler and you can then run your tests and control/dump timing info at will using the "take snapshot" and "clear counters"-buttons.
Alternatively, you can make a reference to the supplied runtime-module from within your code and make explicit calls to the API (TakeSnapshot etc) precisely where you want in your code. The runtime-modules reside in C:\Program Files\EQATEC\EQATECProfiler\RuntimeDLL.
I have a windows service that is failing to start, giving an error "Error 1053: The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion".
Running the service in my debugger works fine, and if I double click on the the service .exe on the remote machine a console window pops up and continues to run without problem - I can even see log messages showing me that the program is processing everything the way it should be.
The service had been running fine previously, though this is my first time, personally, trying to deploy it with the most recent changes made to the program. I've evaluated those changes and cant figure out how they might cause this problem, particuarly since everything runs fine when not started as a service.
The StartRoutine() method of the service impelmentation is empty, so should be returning in a "timely fashion".
I've checked the event logs on the computer, and it doesn't give any additional information other than it didn't hear back from the service in the 30 second requisite time frame.
Since it works on my machine, and as a double-clicked executable, how would I go about figuring out why it fails as a service?
Oh, and it's .NET 2.0, so it shouldn't be affected by the 1.1 framework bug that exhibited this symptom (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/839174)
The box is a windows server 2003 R2 machine running SP2.
This is a misleading error. It's probably an unhandled exception.
Empty your OnStart() handler then try this in your constructor...
public MainService()
{
InitializeComponent();
try
{
// All your initialization code goes here.
// For instance, my exception was caused by the lack of registry permissions
;
}
catch (Exception ex)
{
EventLog.WriteEntry("Application", ex.ToString(), EventLogEntryType.Error);
}
}
Now check the EventLog on your system for your Application Error.
Could be a number of things and it might help to get a stack trace on the machine exhibiting the problem. There are a number of ways to do this but the point is that you have to see where this is failing in the code.
You can do this with remote debugging, but a simple thing might be to just log to the event logger, or file log if you have that. Literally, putting "WriteLine("At class::function()") throughout portions of the code to see if you've made it there.
This will at least get you looking in the right direction (which ultimately is the code).
Update:
See Microsoft's How to Debug Windows Services article for details in troubleshooting startup problems using WinDbg.
This related question details nice ways to debug services that are written in .NET.
I agree with Scott, the easiest way to find out what's happening is to put some traces in the start-up code (maybe it doesn't even come to your start-up code).
If this doesn't help, you can post your code here so others can take a look.
perhaps lacking some dependence, try this :
- deregister your service
- register again
If fail at register means that lack an module.
If the StartRoutine is empty, you are probably starting it somewhere else.
IIRC you need to fire off a worker thread, and then return from StartRoutine.
One of the problems which may lead to this error is if windows service which needs to be deployed consists of some error i.e it may be simple authorization error or anything as in my case I have referenced some folders and files for logging which were not existing, but when provided the right path of those file and folders it solved my problem.
I ran through every post on this particular subject and none of the responses solved the problem, so I'm adding this response in case this helps someone else. Admittedly this only applies to a new service, not this specific case.
I was writing a File listening service. As a console app, it worked perfectly. When I ran it as a service, I got the same error as above. What I didn't know (and many of the MSDN articles about services conveniently leave out) is that you need to have your class executed from within ServiceBase.Run( YourClassName());. Otherwise, your app executes and immediately terminates and because it terminated, you get the error above even if no error or exception occurred. Here is a link to an article about this. It actually discusses setting up your app for dual use - Console app and service: Create a combo command line / Windows service app
I had that issue and the source of my problem was config file. I edited it in notepad and notepad added one special character which cause service not to run properly because config file was ruined. I saw that special character in notepadd++ and after delete it, service started to run successfully as previous did.
In my case, the correct .NET framework was not installed on the server that I was installing the Windows service on.
One other reason is If you copy the DLL in 'debug' mode to installation folder this issue will come.What you need to do is Run the project in 'Release' mode copy the DLL or directly form Release folder rather than Debug folder,,and copy that DLL in to installation folder,it will work.You can see the reduction in size of DLL ,it will not contain any debug symbols and like that