ColdFusion 9 Initial Reactions: Installer Woes

Last week, Adobe announced that ColdFusion 9 was now available.  Being that ColdFusion is our primary development language at Pelco, we were naturally excited about all of the new features that ColdFusion 9 introduces, including new tags to easily work with Office documents and spreadsheets, a new CFMEDIAPLAYER tag that makes presenting video even easier to web developers, newly enhanced AJAX controls and a brand new IDE for building ColdFusion apps.

We placed our order for ColdFusion 9 and chose to wait for the shipped boxes instead of downloading the software, but over the weekend I decided to download the free developer's edition and install it on a server in my home office. I wanted to get a feel for the installation process on a machine with previous versions of ColdFusion on it, since I'd be performing the same installation at Pelco soon enough.  So I downloaded the 480 or so meg installer and began.

The server I installed CF9 on is by no means a powerhouse machine -- it's just a simple server I built for working locally at home.  Running Windows 2000 Advanced Server, it meets all requirements for installing ColdFusion 9 Developer Edition. Before installing ColdFusion 9, it was running ColdFusion 8 Developer Edition, as well as a copy of ColdFusion MX before that (which had long since been disabled, but was still installed).  Unfortunately, installing ColdFusion 9 on this server turned into somewhat of a hassle, and threatened to taint my brand new love affair with ColdFusion 9.

As soon as I loaded the installer, I was greeted with a prompt informing me that the server did not appear to have Microsoft's VC++ 2008 Runtime installed.  The installer gave me the choice of having it install this runtime, or letting me cancel the CF9 installation so that I could install it on my own.  Great, right?  As it turns out, no.  I chose to have the installer install the package, waited a few seconds while it appeared to install something, and then I was told that I'd need to restart the CF9 installer program -- no problem.  Only, when I did so, I was once again told that the Microsoft VC++ 2008 Runtime wasn't installed, and offered another chance to install it!

Figuring I might need to reboot, I cancelled and rebooted, but that didn't solve the problem. So I went to Microsoft directly, found this runtime's installer, and installed it manually.  After one more reboot, I again ran the CF9 installer, and was again told I didn't have the runtime installed... At this point, I decided to ignore the prompt, and instead of choosing to install the runtime (again!) or cancel the installer, I simply closed the prompt via the "x" in the upper right corner -- which allowed me to get back to the installer's main screen and bypass this annoying little prompt!  From there, I was able to get through the rest of the installer... almost.

Near the end of the installation, you choose whether you want to use ColdFusion's built-in server (and access pages via port 8500), or tie ColdFusion into the existing IIS system.  I would much rather have ColdFusion tied directly into IIS than use its built-in server, so I chose that option and clicked Next.  And nothing happened.  Though the Next button was fully operational, it refused to do anything when the IIS option was checked.  The only way it would let me move forward was if I chose to use the built-in ColdFusion server option.  Reluctantly, I chose to do so.

Once I passed that hurdle, the rest of the installation process went smoothly, although I did decide to uninstall CF8 and CFMX completely before finishing the installation so that I could use the default port 8500 for CF9 (I had previously used that port for CFMX's built-in server).  After installation, ColdFusion takes you through the configuration wizard that we've seen before, and that's a snap especially if you're doing so on a brand new server that doesn't have previous versions of ColdFusion installed on it. My experience with that has always been positive, so I assume that'll work fine on our machines at Pelco once I get the real copies of CF9 and install them there.

I can't say whether or not my troubles with installing ColdFusion 9 are based on the fact that I was using the Developer's Edition or not, but the install process seemed to be a little bit buggy. Previous versions of the Developer's Edition allowed me to tie directly into IIS, and I see no reason for Adobe to have changed that.  Once I got everything installed, CF9 ran my existing sites perfectly, so there appears to be no backwards compatibility issues, although one would expect none, since every new version of ColdFusion has worked flawlessly for us with older apps.

Once we get our actual copies of CF9 and install them on our development and production servers, I'll let you know if the install / upgrade experience is any better with the standard versions of this exciting new product!

Comments

[Jack Ring]

I had the exact same problem. I am running on a WIN2K box

[JayCee]

Unfortunately my install of CF9 on windows 2000 server turned out just like your situation. I was able to do a silent install successfully. Though the install defaulted to its own built in web server using port 8500.

After the installation, I was hoping I can run the web server configuration to reconfigure the web server. Oh well it just hang and once I clicked on the add button, I got this on the cmd window.

Exception in thread "AWT-EventQueue-0" java.lang.UnsatisfiedLinkError: F:\ColdFu
sion9\runtime\lib\wsconfig\jrunwin32.dll: The specified procedure could not be f
ound
at java.lang.ClassLoader$NativeLibrary.load(Native Method)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadLibrary0(ClassLoader.java:1778)
at java.lang.ClassLoader.loadLibrary(ClassLoader.java:1674)
at java.lang.Runtime.load0(Runtime.java:770)
at java.lang.System.load(System.java:1003)
at jrunx.connectorinstaller.Win32Handler.(Win32Handler.java:47)
at jrunx.connectorinstaller.IISWebSites.(IISWebSites.java:300)
at jrunx.connectorinstaller.gui.AddConfigDialog.initDialog(AddConfigDial
og.java:135)
at jrunx.connectorinstaller.gui.AddConfigDialog.(AddConfigDialog.j
ava:95)
at jrunx.connectorinstaller.gui.ConfigFrame$1.actionPerformed(ConfigFram
e.java:270)
at javax.swing.AbstractButton.fireActionPerformed(AbstractButton.java:19
95)
at javax.swing.AbstractButton$Handler.actionPerformed(AbstractButton.jav
a:2318)
at javax.swing.DefaultButtonModel.fireActionPerformed(DefaultButtonModel
.java:387)
at javax.swing.DefaultButtonModel.setPressed(DefaultButtonModel.java:242
)
at javax.swing.plaf.basic.BasicButtonListener.mouseReleased(BasicButtonL
istener.java:236)
at java.awt.Component.processMouseEvent(Component.java:6263)
at javax.swing.JComponent.processMouseEvent(JComponent.java:3267)
at java.awt.Component.processEvent(Component.java:6028)
at java.awt.Container.processEvent(Container.java:2041)
at java.awt.Component.dispatchEventImpl(Component.java:4630)
at java.awt.Container.dispatchEventImpl(Container.java:2099)
at java.awt.Component.dispatchEvent(Component.java:4460)
at java.awt.LightweightDispatcher.retargetMouseEvent(Container.java:4574
)
at java.awt.LightweightDispatcher.processMouseEvent(Container.java:4238)

at java.awt.LightweightDispatcher.dispatchEvent(Container.java:4168)
at java.awt.Container.dispatchEventImpl(Container.java:2085)
at java.awt.Window.dispatchEventImpl(Window.java:2475)
at java.awt.Component.dispatchEvent(Component.java:4460)
at java.awt.EventQueue.dispatchEvent(EventQueue.java:599)
at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpOneEventForFilters(EventDispatchThre
ad.java:269)
at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEventsForFilter(EventDispatchThread.
java:184)
at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEventsForHierarchy(EventDispatchThre
ad.java:174)
at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEvents(EventDispatchThread.java:169)

at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.pumpEvents(EventDispatchThread.java:161)

at java.awt.EventDispatchThread.run(EventDispatchThread.java:122)

I am not sure if someone came up with a workaround.

I wish Adobe will address it eventhough they said it was a mistake on the requirements where they said Win 2000 is fine.

C'mon man!

[Budd Wright]

@JayCee: Sorry to hear that you also had problems with the installer on W2k. I would like to say that the problem is only related to Windows 2000 server, but unfortunately, we ran into different problems on a Windows 2003 Server, too (as I blogged about here). Hopefully Adobe will address these issues in the future. We're also almost ready to deploy CF9 to our production server (Windows 2003), and I'll update the blog to let everyone know how that goes when we do.

[Harkirat]

I had the exact same issue with the VC runtime installer on windows 200 server and I wrote to Adobe about it. They told me that Windows 2000 server was no longer supported at which point I pointed out that their website at http://www.adobe.com/products/coldfusion/systemreqs/ said it was supported. They then said they would update the website and it has been updated since then to remove the reference to windows 2000.

[Dave Delbridge]

I ran into this too and published a solution here: http://blog.delbridge.org/post.cfm/how-to-install-coldfusion-9-on-windows-2000-iis-5