MAKEMKV 1.99 - Windows XP installer failure

[onland]

When the installing the current MAKEMKV version 1.99 onto a Windows-XP Pro SP3 system, the installer complains that a directory which the user selects (other than the default folder supplied by the installer) to install into, is NOT empty and then refuses to install. When I installed MAKEMKV 1.99. I manully created a new folder on drive C and the folder was definitely empty. However, the installer kept complaining that the folder was NOT empty and refused install. I tried to install into manually created folders named:

C:\MAKEMKV.199
C:\MAKEMKV

During selection of the installation folder, I manually edited the folder field (in the installer) so that the folder names would be one of the above two.
Usually I would use a folder name in the 8.3 filename format, such as C:\MAKEMKV.199. I previously did not have this problem with the installer on older MAKEMKV versions, and the installation was performed in exactly the same way. I would be interested to hear anyone else can reproduce this installer bug under Win-XP Pro.

[onland]

The specifics related to the reported installer bug in this thread has been found. This bug is confirmed / verified for Win-XP only but may well be present for other Windows versions. Specifically, the installer has a bug whereby IF the installer is pointed to install Make-MKV into a directory that has been previously created manually and even if the directory is empty, the installer will still complain incorrectly that the target folder is NOT empty. In order to install into a specific directory with this current bug, the user must specify the target directory by manually typing in the full path of the target directory when running the installer and ensuring that the directory has NOT been previously created. The installer must create it during installation. Otherwise the installer bug will consider the directory is not empty even if the directory is clearly empty.

This bug should be logged for future fixing with the installer, as it was not present in previous releases of Make-MKV installers, and I was able to manually create a target folder and then point the installer to install into it. For now, the above is the work around to install in a directory of a user's choice.

[Woodstock]

Hopefully Mike can track it down from this.

This can show up in the 64-bit installs if your MakeMKV directory contains anything other than "stock" files; which was a pain for any of us that put special profiles in the MakeMKV directory. However, some time back (not sure when, Mike didn't document it), you can put all those files in the MakeMKV Data Directory (set in Preferences->General). It was probably to fix Windows squawking about "you need administrator privileges to change anything in this directory" if you saved them in the program directory.

[onland]

Hopefully Mike can track it down from this. This can show up in the 64-bit installs if your MakeMKV directory contains anything other than "stock" files; which was a pain for any of us that put special profiles in the MakeMKV directory. However, some time back (not sure when, Mike didn't document it), you can put all those files in the MakeMKV Data Directory (set in Preferences->General). It was probably to fix Windows squawking about "you need administrator privileges to change anything in this directory" if you saved them in the program directory.

I'm not sure why the Make-MKV installer has to be set up in a way that insists the target installation folder must be empty. Other installers aren't this fussy, and in any case, I didn't have this problem in earlier versions of Make-MKV installers, so this is a new bug. I usually manually create the directory I want to install into before I run any installer. I've only tested this bug under Win-XP 32-bit, and I do have Make-MKV preferences set the data directory to a folder on a different drive / path from previous Make-MKV versions used.

[Woodstock]

I'm not sure on why it has to be EMPTY, but... there have been security alerts circulating for a year or so warning about applications being compromised by DLL files that weren't updated because they already existed, so it might be a measure to prevent that. But it meant that each install would wipe out the customized profiles, if you didn't already know to move them to the data directory...

[kevmitch]

This has been happening to me with every single update even though I make no modifications to the MakeMKV directory.

Steps to reproduce on Windows 7:

1. Open outdated MakeMKV
2. Click the update link, which opens Firefox and downloads the installer
3. Run the installer from Firefox
4. Tell the installer to uninstall the old version
5. Tell the installer to install in the default location c:\program files (x86)\MakeMKV
6. See a dialog saying the target directory is not empty.

The funny thing is that if I go and check, the directory IS empty. I cannot however delete it manually immediately even if i have closed both any MakeMKV or installer instances due to Window's brain-dead file access logic. I'm not positive, but I think I have to close *Firefox* before I can manually delete the directory. Once I've done this, I then have to go manually hunt down the new MakeMKV installer and re-run it at which point it proceeds with the install as expected.