tooda01 Posted April 19, 2010 Report Share Posted April 19, 2010 I'm using Retrospect 7.6 on Windows 7 64 bit. The product was working correctly for a while, but now I'm unable to display the UI. When I start Retrospect, what pops up is a small (448x234) form with "EMC Retrospect" in the upper left, a small icon (orange circle with vertical line) that's clickable, but does nothing, a Windows close box, and eight empty evenly spaced horizontal white lines. The same form pops up if I request the Retrospect Activity Monitor. This persists over a reboot - I'm completely unable to get the standard UI. Has anyone ever seen this, or know how to get rid of it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mayoff Posted April 19, 2010 Report Share Posted April 19, 2010 It sounds like Retrospect.exe is running already under a different user account. You should be using the 7.7 version with Windows 7 anyway. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tooda01 Posted April 20, 2010 Author Report Share Posted April 20, 2010 There was no second copy running, but installing Retrospect 7.7 did the trick. Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bwgoodkin Posted April 22, 2010 Report Share Posted April 22, 2010 I, too, am having the same problem with Windows 7, but I'm already using Retrospect 7.7, so that's not going to fix the issue. Here's what I think is going on (Someone please correct me if I'm wrong and provide the "fix". I've already tried uninstalling and reinstalling since this was an upgrade from 7.6.)... Starting with Windows Vista, and continuing with Windows 7, processes started by a service (e.g. Retrospect Launcher) can no longer be seen in a user session - a result of "service hardening" so that a rogue service can't interact with other programs. In Windows XP and earlier versions, if Retrospect Launcher started a backup, you'd see Retrospect in the system tray when you logged in and you'd be able to interact with the GUI just like you started it yourself. Click here for an article about "service hardening" at techrepublic.com IMHO, the fact that the Retrospect GUI was not updated for Vista/Windows 7 so that the functionality is the same as it was for XP really is an indication that Retrospect isn't fully compatible with Vista/7 - it's critical that a backup manager be able to interact with the GUI for things like alerts to change the media, etc., even when the script was started by the service. (In fact, when the background task fails and tries to display a message, you get something to the effect of the following: "A program on this computer is trying to display a message The program might need information from you or you permission to complete a task This problem occurs when a program is not fully compatible with Windows. Please contact the program or device manufacturer(s) for more information." There are a few work-arounds, but I think the only acceptable one is for EMC to update the code: 1) Make sure that the background Retrospect session finishes before trying to access it 2) Rename the "monitor" program so you get a pop-up that allows you to effectively kill the other session. This will stop any running jobs, though, and doesn't stop the job immeadiately. (something like "\Program Files\Retrospect\Retrospect 7.7\monitor\retromonitor.exe") 3) Keep yourself logged in and keep Restrospect running so that background jobs are running in the GUI in your session, rather than getting launched by the service. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bwgoodkin Posted April 27, 2010 Report Share Posted April 27, 2010 Here's the "warning" / "error" message from Windows 7: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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