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I am trying to uninstall Crystal Report for Visual Studio 2011, and install Crystal Report for Visual Studio 2019. I got the error message of "Error applying transforms. Verify that the specified transform path are valid." when uninstalling the program. Therefore, the newer version of Crystal Report for VS 2019 can't be installed.

I searched around and some posts says about windows registry entries caused the problem. I can't find out a solution on what to do.

Highly appreciate your response.

Stein Åsmul
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user14415988
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1 Answers1

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Crystal Reports: I am wondering if you have installed from a network share that is no longer available, or one where the UNC path specified to your transform is blocked or in other ways incorrect. What you need is a proper log file. Please see below. And have a quick peek here: https://apps.support.sap.com/sap/support/knowledge/en/1220433

There are also some issues with secure transforms and complications arising from this and newer Windows settings and security features. Maybe have a quick look here. Just a few links on the topic.

How many machines do you see this on? Just your own?

Preparation: A couple of things first:

  1. Reboot: Do a reboot before attempting the next uninstall. Just to have a clean slate. Allow system to settle after reboot (give it a couple of minutes to settle down).
  2. Corrupt installation files: Re-download your new setup to make sure its installation file is not corrupted. Try to malware scan it too. And finally set it unblocked as shown here.
  3. Admin Rights: Second, make sure you run with proper admin rights? Run the msiexec.exe command from an elevated command prompt. Please launch an elevated cmd.exe (right click => run as administrator).
  4. Anti-Virus: Disable your anti-virus first to prevent any locks from failing your uninstall.

Debugging "Ideas Lists": Common causes of setup runtime issues

Logging: Now the most important. You must also ensure proper logging for the uninstall effort. You can either use logging by policy or define it at the command line level. It would be best to enable the logging policy so the log file is automatically created in the tmp folder. Please see this answer for more on logging.

When you have done the "Preparation" above, please run the uninstall and create a proper log file. Here is the command line (prefer the policy):

msiexec.exe /x "mysetup.msi" /L*V "C:\Temp\msilog.log"

Please open the log you created (or get the log from the temp folder if you have logging policy enabled). Then inspect the log and match against this sample log here: https://www.itninja.com/question/transform-issues

What do you see? Just read line by line and don't be intimidated by all the "line noise".

Common Technical Issues: If you have problems with all other MSI packages and their operation, you could have a bigger problem. Then you should rule out some runtime issues. Note that some issues are commonly caused by malware (or just technicalities that occur randomly sometimes):

  1. Visual C++ Runtime - reinstall it. There are many versions. See what your package needs. The latest supported Visual C++ downloads.
  2. Unregister / re-register msiexec.exe (can be necessary because of malware or normal technical glitches).
  3. Run chkdsk.exe and sfc.exe to check for file corruptions and corrupt OS files.

Microsoft FixIt: You can use the Microsoft FixIt method as a last resort to clean out your existing installation. This generally works (unless you have hacked too much already), but is not ideal: http://support.microsoft.com/mats/Program_Install_and_Uninstall/ - this approach does not clean up or uninstall, it just unregisters the installed package and leaves all its files and registry settings in place. You can try to install the new version, but some interference issues are likely with the garbage left behind. Yes, you can try to clean up manually, but I would just try to overwrite first.

Links:

Stein Åsmul
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  • Only on 1 machine, I installed from CRforVS_13_0_23.exe, which is Crystal Report for VS 2001. I tried to install CRforVS13SP30_0-10010309, which is Crystal Report for VS 2019, on top of it without uninstalling first. That caused the problem. Now I can't uninstall or install either. – user14415988 Mar 05 '21 at 21:23
  • Do you have a log file? It is almost impossible to suggest anything without it. You can put the whole thing on github maybe? – Stein Åsmul Mar 05 '21 at 21:24
  • I could use Microsoft Fix it to uninstall Crystal Report for VS 2010. Then I could re-install Crystal Report for VS 2010, and un-install it without problem. However, I can't install Crystal Report for VS 2019 "CRforVS13SP30_0-10010309.exe", afterwards. It says can't register craxddrt.dll. I aborted the process there. – user14415988 Mar 08 '21 at 17:21
  • The log records toward the end of the log file: – user14415988 Mar 08 '21 at 17:31
  • You likely have a product incompatibility going there. The easiest way to work around that is to install one version on your main machine and the other version on a virtual machine. I have not dealt with Crystal Reports for some time now, so I am not sure what incompatibilities exist. – Stein Åsmul Mar 08 '21 at 17:48
  • Thanks for your kind response. I should have completely removed Crystal Report for VS 2010, before trying to install Crystal Report for VS 2019. I started by upgrading Crystal Report for VS 2019 from VS 2010 and it failed. I think I clicked "ignore" the upgrade of some dlls and caused the error. When upgrade fails, some dlls are updated with new interface, some stay at the old version. There is no way to identify which dlls. Is there any tool that can completely remove Crystal Report's orphan dlls ? – user14415988 Mar 08 '21 at 18:55
  • I think there was a cleanup tool a long time ago, maybe you can check with their support. As you say you can also wipe the product and the reinstall and uninstall - that should clean out most of it. You can do this with both versions in sequence. There are also some means to clean out broken COM registration via CCleaner and such, but I wouldn't really recommend it. – Stein Åsmul Mar 08 '21 at 19:42