Errors running software - Starting error Number: 2

[Rudios]

I get errors when I (try to) run ZSE 7.1 under Windows 10. The errors are: "Critical Error: Unable to..." and "Starting error Number: 2". I get a message to reinstall ZSE again but when I do I get the same error messages. I have installed the program before, 6 months ago, now I decided to buy it (because it is the best). What should I do?
Thanks!

[Richard]

Can you try the following:

1. Uninstall the program.
2. Delete the following folder, C:\ProgramData\Wrensoft\Zoom Search Engine Indexer V7, ProgramData is a hidden folder, but you can navigate to it by entering the address into the File Explorer address bar.
3. Redownload the latest release from our website in case your previous download was corrupted, http://www.wrensoft.com/zoom/whatsnew.html
4. Reinstall the software.

If you continue to have issues, please let us know.

[Rudios]

Did the above and I have the same problem. I did try the software on another Windows10 computer without any problem. Would like the run ZSE on first computer. What else can I do? Thanks!

[Ray]

We've been investigating an issue the last few days and think we've found the culprit.

Do you have McAfee LiveSafe installed?

We were able to reproduce the problem when McAfee LiveSafe is installed on Windows 10 in particular. This product seems to be incorrectly interfering with Zoom. At no point does it identify Zoom as being malware (in which case, it would be considered a false positive). But it continues to prohibit the software from running. It also, in general slows down the performance of all applications very significantly in our observation.

There appears to be at least two symptoms that can exhibit itself with the above scenario.

1) ZoomIndexer.exe is able to start and the user can access the GUI and window to configure and click "start indexing". But the core indexing engine (ZoomEngine.exe) is prohibited from running and the Log tab will show the error message, "Critical error: unable to communciate with core engine".

2) ZoomIndexer.exe is prevented from running, so immediately after the user double click on the desktop shortcut for "Zoom Indexer", they will see the error message, "Error during startup. A problem has occurred with your installation. You may need to uninstall and reinstall the software ... Startup Error Number 2".

Disabling any of the features in McAfee LiveSafe does NOT change the behaviour. Temporarily (or permanently) disabling "Real-time Scanning", "Firewall", "Anti-Spam", etc. are all to no avail. Tellingly, performance of the machine (and other software) also stays poor when these features are disabled. So McAfee LiveSafe is clearly continuing to disrupt activity in the background.
The only way we could get it to work with LiveSafe was the following: 1) System must already have LiveSafe installed 2) Temporarily disable Real-time Scan, Firewall, Spam, and other live features. We set this to not automatically re-enable so we do not run out of time. 3) RE-install Zoom (on top of an existing installation, in our case) 4) Now run Zoom. It should run correctly. 5) Now re-enable LiveSafe features. 6) Zoom should continue to run correctly. Even after Restarting the machine, it seems OK. LiveSafe appears to be doing some convoluted method of blocking or categorizing files at some point, which we have no control over. Please let us know if the above helps you.

We will attempt to get in touch with McAfee. I would imagine that McAfee will be able to fix this for a future update. But they can be slow to take action.

[Rudios]

I do not run McAfee Livesafe on my PC, but other sec. apps. I disabled AVG, Tiny Firewall and Spybot 2. Same problem. Nothing seems to help, maybe it is a problem in the registrie of Windows 10? Thanks.

[Ray]

We haven't yet been able to reproduce the problem without McAfee LiveSafe installed. But we did get one other account of this reported by a user. So clearly there is an elusive issue at hand that requires further investigation.

Can you try right-clicking on the Zoom shortcut and selecting "Run as Administrator" and see if this changes the behaviour? Let us know what you find.

Can you also check if the following folder and file exists on the machine installed? And if there's any possible Permissions issue with the current logged in User and this folder?

C:\ProgramData\Wrensoft\Zoom Search Engine Indexer V7\userinfo.dat

[Rudios]

File userinfo.dat (zero bytes) and dirs present, file/dir permissions seem to be Ok. Run software as Administrator also has no effect.

[Ray]

That file should not be zero bytes.

Can you verify if this was reported as the "Size" or the "Size on disk" within the File Properties window in Explorer?

We're continuing investigation but any additional info can help.

Can you also check the size reported for the following file:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Zoom Search Engine 7.1\ZoomEngine.exe

After you've checked the above, and if the "Size" reported is actually 0 bytes (not the "Size on disk"), then you can try deleting the userinfo.dat file and re-installing Zoom. This should at least stop one of the errors and allow you to start Zoom again.

[Rudios]

It is zero bytes Size on disk. ZoomEngine = 8,118,824 bytes and ZoomIndexer = 6,138,064 bytes. I will test ZSE later. Thanks!

[Ray]

Please try the latest build (V7.1 build 1006) available from here.

We've updated the manifest targeting of the application for Windows 10. This may change the way it works on Win10.

We've also further increased the timeout for the core executable launch, so if there's anything slowing it down (e.g. anti-virus), it wouldn't time out so easily.

[Rudios]

No problems and no errors with this new version. Thanks!