JCHEM exe and ZIP install issues with batchsetup

Hi,

installation of JCHEM as ZIP or EXE windows installer was successful, however, once a new JAVA version is installed (happens quite often due to security bugs) it breaks the original installation path settings.

Calling setup and batch setup (even as admin) has no effect. the command line programs can not be called

X:\JChem\bin>setup
'Files\Java\jre7\"".' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
X:\JChem\bin>batchsetup.bat

X:\JChem\bin>setup
'Files\Java\jre7\"".' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.


X:\JChem\bin>cxcalc
The system cannot find the path specified.

 

Editing the file "inst_jre.cfg" in the .install4j directory does not have an effect, if the directory name under WINDOWS has a space. However "Program files" is the standard installation path for all 64-bit applications under windows 7 and 8.

 

SO only moving the JAVA path to a non-space containing directory name solves that issue. Also there seems to be no clear guidance who to repair a broken JCHEM installation. Hence manual editing inst_jre.cfg solves the issue.

 

Its very confusing, in the bin directory there is

1) setup.bat

2) batchsetup.bat

3) config.bat

but none of them solve the above issue when executed.

 

Cheers

Tobias

 

Hello Tobias,

I have started to reproduce this issue, I will be back soon.

Best regards,

Gabor

HI,

OK, actually it happened on another machine too. Basically the JDK and JRE under Windows are in different folders, the JAVA location is not exported anymore to the environment variables. I did manually export the JAVA_HOME to the windows environment in the past, but each granular JCHEM and JAVA update would require a new folder (because it includes a new version number). OR if you strip the folder names and always install it into a static folder it should work. Reality due to the frequent updates of the JDK and JRE and up to 10-20 different JAVA engines installed it basically breaks. 

Cheers

Tobias

Hello,

First of all, I am sorry for the late answer.

Do you mean you always install new jre into a new folder containing its version number and you remove the previous one? My automatic update always uses the same folder: Program Files/Java/jre7 (although a silent update from jre6 to jre7 will cause this problem).

Unfortunately our installer tool gets jre path during installation and apparently this method was applied by ChemAxon as well. On the other hand, I am afraid that modifying installed files will cause that the uninstall will not remove them, because it will assume they contain important information for the user.

Java path is stored in the file you mentioned, but it is in JChem/bin/java.ini as well, which is used in all batch files to find jre.

Regarding setup.bat, batchsetup.bat: I have tired in 6.1.3 they do not do anything in my installation. They might have been deprecated silently, I am afraid. Regarding spaces in the path: I did not managed to reproduce the problem. Which version of JChem do you use?

Best regards,

Gabor

Hi Gabor,

I am using version 6.05. The problem I described appeared on multiple Windows Machines (Vista, Win7, Win8). All of them had working command line tools as well as Marvin and Marvin Beans. Once the JAVA update madness started, plus potentially also Windows updates, all installations were broken, basically the command line tools such as cxcalc and molconvert did not start anymore.

If that is not an issue for anybody else I suspect a complete removal and clean install should cure that issue after each JAVA installation.

Cheers

Tobias