Reboots after installing an upgrade

Sometimes, after you have upgraded your Cardbox installation by running a new version of the Cardbox 3.0 installer, Setup will ask you to reboot your computer to complete the installation. This is irritating.

The reason for the reboot

The reason why Setup asks you to reboot your computer is that it has tried to replace one of the Cardbox program files (usually cardbox3.exe) and Windows has replied "Sorry, this file is in use, please try later". So Setup arranges for the file to be replaced the next time Windows starts - when the file will certainly not be in use.

In theory

In a correctly functioning Windows system the only reason for cardbox3.exe to be in use is if you are actually running Cardbox, so the simple way to avoid having to reboot your system is to close Cardbox before you run the Cardbox 3.0 installer. (If you are installing your upgrade on a file server that is used by several people, then of course you have to make sure that they have all closed Cardbox).

In reality

On many occasions the reboot is requested when Cardbox isn't running. The cause is still the same: Windows is saying that a file is in use.

We have investigated this situation using the Handle and ProcessMonitor utilities from Microsoft. The file that is reported as being in use is cardbox3.exe, and the program that is reported as using it is either Windows Explorer (explorer.exe) or Microsoft Word.

There is no reason for Windows Explorer to be holding cardbox3.exe open when Cardbox is not running, and there is no reason at all for Microsoft Word to even know of the existence of cardbox3.exe. There is clearly something very strange going on here.

One hypothesis is that some anti-virus software is opening cardbox3.exe for some unknown reason, and failing to close it. According to this hypothesis, the program concerned does this at such a deep level within Windows that the opening is not recorded under the anti-virus software's own identity but under the identity of whatever program happens to be running at the time. Unfortunately, since hardly any PCs run Windows without anti-virus software, this is a difficult hypothesis to test.

Releasing an open file

If something like Microsoft Word is holding cardbox3.exe open then closing Word will release it. Thus if you follow the traditional advice of "Close all running programs before running Setup", you will be protected from the reboot problem.

On the other hand, if Windows Explorer is holding cardbox3.exe open, you will have to stop and restart Windows Explorer. The sequence of commands will look something like this:

1. Start the Cardbox 3.0 installer program.
2. Shut down Windows Explorer.
   1. Press Ctrl+Alt+Delete to activate Task Manager.
   2. Open the Processes page of the Task Manager window.
   3. Click on the heading of the left-hand column (Image Name) to get the names into alphabetical order.
   4. Select explorer.exe and press the Delete key. Confirm that you want to terminate the process.
   5. Close or minimise the Task Manager window.
3. Continue with the Cardbox 3.0 installer program until it has completed.
4. Restart Windows Explorer.
   1. Press Ctrl+Alt+Delete to activate Task Manager.
   2. In Task Manager, do File > New Task (Run...).
   3. Type explorer as the command line and press OK.

Forcibly closing files

One of our users, Bert Stortenbeker, reports that he has used a utility called Unlocker to close any open Cardbox program files before running the Cardbox 3.0 Installer to perform an upgrade: see the Cardbox Talk forum entry. We cannot recommend this ourselves because we have no idea of the real reasons why the files are being held open in the first place; but Bert's system seems to have survived so far.

Prevention

The problem seems to occur more often if you have Cardbox database files on the Windows desktop. It is also possible that having Cardbox databases in the "recently used documents" list of the Start menu may make the problem more likely.