Office 32bit with DTI 64 bit Issue

[ChrisCollinson]

All,

We have 64 bit Win 7 pro machines but our IT want us to run 32 bit MS Office 2010. When we install DTI it has to be 64bit because of the OS

Has anyone seen issues such as word closing down with an error or Windows Explorer closing down unexpectedly?

We have seen this on a couple machines now so am now delaying rolling out DTI until we can fix this

Windchill 10.2 M020

Thanks in advance

Chris

[BenPerry]

Chris,

We're in the same boat as you. We are testing an upgrade to 10.2 M020. We have found the same problems, but only for users that had DTI installed during Windchill 9.1.

We uninstalled the 9.1 DTI and installed 10.2 DTI, but had many many crashes. But deleting some reg keys & local user files before installing 10.2 DTI resolved those issues.

Courtesy of my colleague, perhaps you can give this a try. It resolved our problems.

• Uninstall the DTI
• Remove HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\PTC\WindowsIntegration
• Remove HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\CLSID\{41D05AF7-C30A-4AA7-8802-E3A0EA1F30C0}
• C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\PTC\Desktop Integration
• C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Roaming\ptc\Windchill Desktop Integration
• Restart machine to ensure everything is out of memory
• Reinstall

[soerton]

We are having a similar issue. We were running 10.1 M040 w/ DTI installed. Since we have upgraded to 10.2 M020, we have been having issues with Windows Explorer crashing. It seems to be the Windchill Overlay Icons in Windows Explorer option that is causing the crash. I currently have a case open with PTC to try to fix this issue.

[sm]

Steve, I hope they sort that our for you. In the mean time, I would suggest trying Ben's method. I ran into the same Windows Explorer crashing scenario and after clearing out the Registry, everything went back to normal. In my case, I had years of DTI installations from v9-10.2 on my machine.

If TS has not already asked, they will be looking for Fiddler and DBGView logs from the machine that crashes.

[soerton]

So I tried Ben's fix and it did not work. I reimaged one of my machines yesterday so TS can see me install it. We know its not an issue with our image because we experienced the same error on a machine that was completely built from scratch. We tested with our AV turned off but it would not allow me to install DTI. Will comment again on this tomorrow after I sit down with TS.

[soerton]

We seem to have fixed the issue. Seems our AV (Trend Micro) was giving us the issue. We installed DTI with AV turned off & added an exception for WTWindows.exe. Now, we would link our users to be able to install DTI on their own, but since our users do not have local admin on their systems, we at least need to ensure installing with our AV active isn't going to affect then.

[sm]

Great news. You can always use the silent install option to automate the software distribution and use a .REG file for any post installation configuration you'd like to apply. The connectivity issues are always tricky as various 3rd party controls are introduced; anit-virus, malware, firewall, sso, etc.

[soerton]

Just an update. We thought we had it fixed but alas no. We have found that Windows Explorer crashes when accessing documents on a mapped or network drive. Tomorrow I will be actively testing DTI with files on my local drive in the Default File Location.

[sm]

What was the result of your testing? Are you actively working with PTC Technical Support on this issue. They can give you some tips on enabling debug mode and capturing log files to share with R&D to help determine the root cause of the issue.

[soerton]

Hi Scott, We are still having issues. Testing with the mapped drive gave the same errors as working thru a network drive.

PTC asked for the following

I will need the following details in order to proceed further, as I’m unable to reproduce this issue on our test servers.

1. Output of windchill version command in a text file.
2. Mention the detailed steps followed to reproduce the issue or include the screen recording.
3. Versions (including service packs) for:
a. OS
b. MS Office
c. Internet Explorer
d. DTI (see about tab in the Configuration UI).
4. Time when the problem was observed.
5. Method server logs with following verbosities enabled and only from the time you started to reproduce the issue to the time the problem was seen.
a. Please enable the following log4jMethodServer.properties configuration before proceeding to reproduce the issue.
b. log4j.logger.com.ptc.windchill.enterprise.doc=ALL
c. log4j.logger.com.ptc.windchill.enterprise.attachments=ALL
d. log4j.logger.com.ptc.windchill.enterprise.nativeapp.msoi=ALL
e. log4j.logger.com.ptc.windchill.enterprise.wip=ALL
f. log4j.logger.wt.fv =ALL
g. log4j.logger.wt.content =ALL
6. DTI verbose logging needs to be captured after reproducing the issue:
a. Select All for Debug Output drop down while checking the box to capture the logging for DTI. This is typically done from the Configuration UI.
b. The logs will be located at %USERPROFILE%\LOCALS~1\Application Data\PTC\Desktop Integration on Windows XP and at %TEMP%/../PTC/Desktop Integration on Windows Vista/7. Alternatively, you can follow the logs and user data shortcut under the DTI installation. ZIP the whole logs folder and send it across after issue is reproduced.

After that, they requested the Fiddler logs.

I have been testing with only working on local files in my Default file path and have incurred only one Windows Explorer crash today.

We are still trying to work with them, but its a challenge as they cannot reproduce. Its been sitting in R&D since Dec 5 (today is Dec 29) so I believe they will just continue to applogise to me weekly about how long it is taking until I give up & close the case.

[dnewman]

In case anyone still needed a solution to this Issue, I found that simply disabling the DTI preference in Server Configuration > General > Windchill Overlay Icons in Windows Explorer (Like Stephen mentioned earlier) stops Windows Explorer Closing.

This is not really a fix but is a solution, As long as the preference isn't enabled then WE is fine

[kpeterman]

I submitted this same problem to PTC in June 2014. They still have not figured out what is wrong (as of Jan 2015). There seems to be a wide variety of errors here from none (works perfectly) all the way to cannot even install DTI. Please keep this thread going.

[soerton]

Glad to see I'm not the only one to have this issue. PTC cannot replicate and has closed the case for now. They gave us some more logging to enable but we haven't had a chance to try it yet

Please enable the user-mode local dump to generate full crash dump whenever explorer crashes and send the dump for analysis. Please refer below articles to configure the local dump. Basically you just need to add few registry entries.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/bb787181%28v=vs.85%29.aspx

http://social.technet.microsoft.com/wiki/contents/articles/8103.application-crash-dump-analysis-windows-7.aspx

[sm]

I had problems with Windows Explorer closing unexpectedly for a long time on my machine. I found it was caused by the many, many different versions of Windchill DTI that had been installed over the years. I tried lots of ways to fix things, but ultimately, it was a full un-install, followed by a Windows registry cleaning of all DTI keys and a new installation that cured it. I have not had a Windows Explorer problem in a long time.

Please keep working with PTC Technical Support. They are here to help and should be able to resolve this issue for you. The more ways you can isolate the issue, the easier it will be for them to diagnose and find the root cause.

[sking]

I don't think I have had even one Windows Explorer crash, since I made the configuration setting change that Stephen O. recommended on Server Configuration > General > Windchill Overlay Icons in Windows Explorer. 

If you know of a fix coming from PTC, would love to hear about it.  The overlay is not critical by any means, but it is a nice feature.