ActiveStink Setup Hangs -- FIX

[drtimhill]

If you are having trouble installing ActiveSync 3.7 or 3.7.1 on Windows XP, read on...

PROBLEM: ActiveSync setup unpacks files but then fails silently. No welcome screen is displayed. Examining Running processes with Task Manager shows MSASYNC.EXE running, but no UI appears.

SOLUTION: (Worked out by me based on some hints on the net)...

*** Reboot your computer ***
This will clean-out and currently running AS hung installs.

*** Find and cleanup your "Temp" folder ***
1. Right-click "My Computer" and select "Properties". Click the "Advanced" tab and then click the "Environment Variables" button.

2. Locate the variable named "TEMP" (not "TMP"). Write-down the value of this variable, which will usually be something like "C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Local Settings\Temp". Close the System Properties window(s).

3. In Explorer, navigate to the TEMP folder path you found in step 2 above. Delete ALL the files and folders in this folder (they are only scratch files). Make sure you choose the right folder! Make sure you delete all sub-folders as well.

*** Start ActiveSync setup and let in hang ***
1. Locate and double-click MSASYNC.EXE (the downloaded ActiveSync setup file). You should see a couple of copy-progress type dialogs while files are copied.

2. After the last of these dialogs vanishes, AS will hang. Wait a few moments, then SHUTDOWN your computer. This last step is important.

*** Capture and save ActiveSync install files ***
1. When your computer has restarted, open Explorer.

2. Navigate to the TEMP folder again. You should see a new folder named something like IXP000.TMP. Open it in Explorer. You should now see all the AS install files, including "comp", "core", "sys" etc folders and a whole bunch of CAB and DLL files.

3. You CAN run the setup from here, but I advise copying the entire IXP000.TMP folder to another permanent storage location so you always have these files if you need to re-install. Just lift the entire folder tree out and drop it somewhere convenient.

*** Run Unpacked ActiveSync Setup ***
1. Once you have the setup tree safely copied, start ActiveSync setup by double-clicking "is_setup.exe" in the copied folder. DO NOT run "setup.exe" -- this will just hang again!

Hope this helps everyone, and it works for you.

-Tim