using regcap

[Preference]

Hello,

I'm trying to use regcap.exe to create the registry entries necessary to
register some COM dlls from a MSI as suggested by Microsoft. It seems this
program works fine with some of my dlls, but not for all. The problem is that
this program does not tell nothing about what is happening, it simply does
not generate any output file. And doesn't exists any help about it. When you
type in a command line regcap without parameters you get:

REGCAP [/R] [/T DTE] [/O regfile] [/L logfile] [/A arguments] [/I] [/E
DLLEntryPoint]filename
REGCAP /?
REGCAP @response_file

but nothing else. Is not possible to know what each parameter does.

The only feedback I obtain from the program is the errorlevel code. If fails
with 128 for some dlls and with -2147023898 for others.

Any idea?

Thanks

[Charles Wang[MSFT]]

Hi,
Per my understanding, you tried to use RegCap to create the registry
entries to a .reg file; however you found that this tool could not work
fine for all of your COM dlls. It did not generate any output file if it
failed.
If I have misunderstood, please let me know.

I am surprised to see that this tool is undocumented. I will consult the
product team on this issue and let you know the result as soon as possible.

If you have any other questions or concerns, please feel free to let me
know.

Sincerely yours,
Charles Wang
Microsoft Online Community Support

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[Charles Wang[MSFT]]

Hi,
Unfortunately I have not got the answer from the product team by now. I
will strike them for a second time. If I got an answer I will post it here
immediately.

Since the tool is undocumented but has been released with Visual Studio
7.0, to get efficient and effective answers, I also recommend that you
contact Microsoft Customer Support Service (CSS) via telephone.

To obtain the phone numbers for specific technology request please take a
look at the web site listed below.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=fh;EN-US;PHONENUMBERS

If you are outside the US please see http://support.microsoft.com for
regional support phone numbers

Best regards,

[Charles Wang[MSFT]]

Hi,
I got the the response from the product team:
=========================================
Regcap is a tool intended to aid in setup authoring, but by the very nature
of the way it works, it’s not perfect.
I would start with using SP1.
After that, any files that it is not working well for, the workaround is to
add the required registry entries into the Registry Editor of the Setup
project.
=========================================
From the response, you may first install Visual Studio 2005 SP1 to see if
this issue persists; if so, you may need to add required registry entries
by yourself. You may program to check and write the registry entries.

Hope this helps. Please feel free to let me know if you have any other
questions or concerns.

[Preference]

Hi,

I had already installed the SP1, so this is not the solution.

All this seems incredible!

1. My MSI can't selfregister my dlls on Vista because a problem in VC
merge modules(See post 'Problems installing on vista' in
microsoft.public.vc.language from 12/14/06).
2. The Microsoft recommendation is not to selfregister. Instead use regcap.
3. regcap doesn't work with my dlls. Maybe the problem is in my dlls but
is not possible to know because there isn't any documentation.

¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿????????????

[Charles Wang[MSFT]]

Hi,
Thanks for your response.

> 1. My MSI can't selfregister my dlls on Vista because a problem in VC
> merge modules(See post 'Problems installing on vista' in
> microsoft.public.vc.language from 12/14/06).

Did you try registerring the COM DLL by running command.exe with "Run as
Administrator"?

I am not an expert of Windows installation programming, but I would like to
provide the following sites for your reference:
http://blogs.msdn.com/windows_installer_team/
http://blogs.msdn.com/heaths/archive/2006/09/26/Custom-Actions-under-UAC-in-
Vista.aspx

> 2. The Microsoft recommendation is not to selfregister. Instead use
regcap.

Since RegCap is a tool and now it is not perfect, it may not be able to
adapt all situations.
That is why I recommend that you consider to self register the entries in
your setup application.

> 3. regcap doesn't work with my dlls. Maybe the problem is in my dlls but
> is not possible to know because there isn't any documentation.

I agree with you. The problem is that since RegCap is an undocumented tool
which is most likely released with VS2003 for users test and feedbacks, it
is hard for us to know its limitations now. In this case, it is hard to
find out where need to change in your code so as to suit the limitation.
Actually there is a third-party tool which source code was published at
codeproject having the similar function, but it still has some limitations.
Please refer to:
RegSvrEx - An Enchanced COM Server Registration Utility
http://www.codeproject.com/w2k/regsvrex.asp

Also, you may use RegMon to monitor your setup application to see if there
are some helpful logs on your issue.
You can download the tool from:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/utilities/Regmon.mspx

Hope this helps.

Sincerely yours,

Charles Wang
Microsoft Online Community Support
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