SMS: Smsacm32.exe Does Not Set Status to Success (166679)

SUMMARY

Smsacm32.exe is a Systems Management Server helper program designed to provide an install wrapper for Systems Management Server shared application support of Microsoft 32-bit applications. These include Microsoft Office 95 and Microsoft Office 97 or their individual components (such as Microsoft Word 7.0, Microsoft Excel 7.0 and so on). Smsacm32.exe was introduced as a 32-bit equivalent of Smssetup.exe, which is used to install shared versions of Microsoft 16-bit applications (such as Microsoft Office 4.2 or Microsoft Word 6.0).

MORE INFORMATION

The primary use of Smsacm32.exe is in the Configuration Command Line of the Program Item Properties for shared Microsoft applications. When the program item is selected for the first time, the Configuration Command Line is started by Appstart.exe, which in turn starts the application's Microsoft Acme Setup (Setup.exe) to perform a workstation setup of the application. The 16-bit version of Smssetup.exe sets the following registry key to Success after a successful installation by Acme Setup:

   HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\SMS\APPICATIONS\<Application Registry Name>
   \CONFIGURESCRIPT\STATUS

NOTE: The above registry key is one path; it has been wrapped for readability.

After STATUS is set to Success, Appstart.exe would not need to call Acme Setup again, but instead call the actual application executable from an available distribution server.

However, Smsacm32.exe does not set the STATUS to Success after the successful installation of a shared application, but changes the status from Failed (changed during Acme Setup in case of failure) to Configure. This is due to the nature of Acme Setup 3.0, because it creates application icons under the Windows Explorer Start, Programs menu during installation of the application. The icons created by Program Group Control (PGC) for shared applications such as Access 97, Word 97, and so forth are therefore only used for shared application setup and installation. The applications themselves are invoked in the normal way through the use of their shortcuts created from the Start, Programs menu on the task bar. These shortcuts in turn invoke Appstart.exe to start the application from an available distribution server.