A cautionary tale

[deltarho[1859]]

Opened FileLocator Pro (Mythicsoft) and was told that a new version was available, so downloaded the installer.

The install failed due to a lack of space. What? I have more space than I can shake a stick at. It transpires that the installer was dumping massive amounts of data into the temp folder, which is on the Ram Disk.

With so much free RAM, I'm not a power user, the Ram Disk was increased from 500MiB to 1GiB. The old version of FileLocator Pro was removed, but the install failed again due to a network resource not being available. What network resource? I was told the old version had not been removed, but I saw it being removed. So FileLocator Pro is now gone, and the installer is failing.

OK – I'll put the temp folder back onto the system drive. SoftPerfect relocated that for me, but I couldn't fathom out how to remove the junction. I have software which creates/removes junctions, so got the temp folder back to a genuine location instead of a placeholder.

The installer still moaned about a network resource not being available.

I could feel a bout of paranoia coming on, and I wondered what time the pubs opened, and then remembered that I gave up drinking some years ago.

I am fastidious about system backups, so I could go back and make the old version of FileLocator Pro available again. That will be done and get told that a new version is available – yeah right.

The cautionary tale here is whatever happens to our system, assuming hardware is functioning properly, a working system backup will always get us out of trouble.

A report has been sent to Mythicsoft. They have a product called FileLocator Network. I wonder if their download link was wrong.

[deltarho[1859]]

Mythicsoft referred me to a MS article on Install/Uninstall. I read that and installed a MS Install/Uninstall troubleshooter. That did not work – do they ever?

Anyway it looked like a registry corruption and was probably caused when the 500MiB Ram Disk 'choked'. The 1GiB Ram Disk most likely failed because by then the registry was broken.

The first thing that I did on the backup restoration was to get the temp folder back on the system drive. The latest version of FileLocator Pro then installed without issue.

Again it was the backup which got me out of trouble because it restored a registry 'in rude health'.

Apparently not all installers use the temp folder. Putting the temp folder on a Ram Disk looks to be not a good idea after all. I will keep the Ram Disk at 500MiB - I now only have the Temporary Internet Files (TIFs) on that – my browsing habits will not see the Ram Disk choke with that. Besides, I have the Ram Disk percentage use noted on my desktop in real time, so I can see if I get too close to the mark.

Added: I went back to Mythicsoft and thanked them for their support and explained what happened.

They replied with: “Thanks for the feedback, we'll use the information for future support issues.”

[deltarho[1859]]

I renewed a software licence the other day, but lost the email containing it on the backup restore. Not to worry, I put my licences in a Password Manager with the database backed up automatically with a change on an external drive. If my PC went 'pear shaped' I would have access to all my passwords and licences for the new PC. The auto had not worked. I did a manual backup and that worked.

I have requested a resend of the licence.

I now have to contact the Password Manager folk to tell them that the auto is not working.

Before doing a system backup restore, I should back up my emails on an external drive. So much to remember.

[deltarho[1859]]

The licence was resent, so all is now well.

The lesson here, then, is don't put the temp folder on a Ram Disk – it could backfire on you as we don't know if and when an installer uses it.