msnbc news alert installer: "Unable to start browser"

[Francois Gouget]

On Thu, 3 Jan 2002, Dan Kegel wrote:
[...]
> I can't see anything obvious, but then I'm out of practice.

   Done that. From my log:

0806dc98:Call shell32.ShellExecuteA(00000000,00000000,00409a34 "netscape.exe",40555934
"http://www.msnbc.com/tools/newsalert/nasetup.asp?b=nainst&n=0",00000000,0000000a) ret=00408347
0806dc98:Call kernel32.WinExec16(40555030 "netscape.exehttp://www.msnbc.com/tools/newsalert/nasetup.asp?b=nainst&n=0",0000000a) ret=407a7ed7

   'netscape.exehttp...' this is obviously wrong.
   And this comes from dlls/shell32/shell.c:ShellExecute16():

    /* First try to execute lpFile with lpParameters directly */
    strcpy(cmd,lpFile);
    strcat(cmd,lpParameters ? lpParameters : "");


0806dc98:Ret  kernel32.WinExec16() retval=00000002 ret=407a7ed7
0806dc98:Call kernel32.SearchPathA(00000000,00409a34
"netscape.exe",407cb778 ".exe",00000100,405549f4,00000000) ret=407a78bf


   Then it goes on trying to find netscape.exe in your path. So
obviously if you don't have it in your path it will fail. But their may
be more issues there, like per application paths. I don't know how well
Wine implements those. And then you will probably not actually have
windows netscape.exe in your fake_windows environment.
   The URL asks you to enter preferences and then saves them into a
file. But you are unlikely to save it in the right location. Also, there
must be some synchrnization mechanism between this and the installer and
I don't think it is working in Wine.

   Anyway, the bug above is certainly worth fixing. Also, ShellExecuteA
should probably not keep calling WinExec16.

--
Francois Gouget         fgouget at free.fr        http://fgouget.free.fr/
              Linux: Because rebooting is for adding new hardware