Install trouble with 7.5 and 7.6: patch is older than the version installed [Resolved]

Question

I’ve got a problem with a translator’s computer that was facing the black window contents problem. (Notes window shows contents as completely black.)

A colleague tried reinstalling 7.6 but when that failed then also 7.5. Unfortunately that seemed to fail too.

Now the problem I have is that 7.6.54 refuses to install because it complains that the Alternative Rendering Engine is turned off so I need to turn it on in 7.5 first. But 7.5 is not functioning and will not install either. It complains while doing the black command-prompt-style patch screen (lots of dots) “Checking version numbers.This patch is older than your installed version.” This happens even if I:

• Delete/rename the Paratext 7 folder,
• Delete/rename the %appdata%/Paratext73 folder
• Delete the ScrChecks registry settings

I understand that both .Net 4.5.1 and 4.6 has been installed.

So my questions are:

• Where on earth is the Alternative Rendering Engine setting saved and how can I change it manually?
• What do I need to do to stop the objection that the patch is older than the version installed?

Answer 1

OK. I have resolved the problem. There are 2 things I learnt and 3 I discovered.

1. Our IT guy installed .Net 4.6.2 That was a Bad Thing™. It made the Paratext 7.5 installer fail with the message about the ‘patch is older than your installed version.’ I uninstalled 4.6.2 and then installed 7.5 and all was fine. Except…
2. Pt7.6 installer still complained about Alternative Rendering Engine being unticked in 7.5 and the need for me to tick it. I could now open 7.5 and discovered it WAS TICKED. So I unticked it and ticked it again (toggled) to try to force its value to be saved then clicked OK and closed Pt7.5 then tried the Pt7.6 installer again and it was happy.
3. When we reinstalled 7.6 again all windows were black until I simply turned off Graphics Hardware Acceleration in the Tools → Options menu and restarted.

That is probably what we should have done in the first place.

Comments

If you still have a computer that displays ‘black’ with “Graphics Hardware Acceleration” on - I’d appreciate a problem report from within PT. Normally the problem is solved by upgrading the graphics driver, but if that hasn’t already happened, a problem report will allow the current driver version to be added to the black list.

Thanks

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OK. Next time I see that computer I’ll try to send in a problem report.