windows installation hang

Question

How can I find what's hanging all new installations on a Windows box?

While testing an installation script on Windows (XP Pro, if it matters) I've run into a situation wherein any and all attempts to install anything on the system hang waiting on who knows what. When the system is restarted, all queued up attempts at installation then go through their exit paths with pop-ups that report the installation is being aborted due to system shutdown having been requested. Of course, reboots do not cure the problem. The system otherwise runs fine.

So... How can I determine what part of the OS I've wedged? (Something in the registry, I suppose, but I'm a real greenhorn when it comes to Windows.) Most likely, something from a preceding install attempt went awry and is now blocking even though I saw no errors reported. Once I figure this out, I want to put in a check for this sort of thing, possibly at both ends of my install scripts, if that seems reasonable.

Thanks for your input.

UPDATE: Unfortunately for me, rebuilding from scratch to get to the point the system's in now is about 9 hours. I'd like to unwedge it from where it is now rather than reload (again). Procmon seems great but I haven't got SP2 installed, only SP1! -frown- So, other ideas are welcome.

Answer 1

Try using Procmon to figure out where the installer is having problems, if you set a filter it will report all file and registry activity for that process.

Answer 2

I assume you've tried logging the install to see where things go wrong?

Try rolling back to before things went wrong using "System Restore", if that doesn't solve it and the MSI log files show nothing useful then I'd take the plunge and reload before wasting any more time on it.

That said, if you're developing installers then taking an image of this PC in it's crappy state could be a worthwhile exercise. Some point in the future when you have more time to debug you can try and figure out what the problem is.

P.S. I'm assuming you're asking this question from the point of view of someone developing an installer and not as a tech-support question... otherwise this question should probably be closed as not-programming-related ;)