Add-ins...

[Gruffy]

Hi there!

Been using the EA tool now for some weeks. Great experience!

We have also bought the DOORS-link and I am having trouble getting anything to load under the Add-ins menu. I tried to reinstall both EA and the MDG Link DOORS.

I tried to follow suggestions on this board about re-register the DLL etc but with no luck. It manages to register, but still no sight of the plugin in EA. And yes, I have registered the Key in the license manager.

I also tried to download the beta version of the MDG RealTime UML and install this according to instructions. This seems to give me the same results as I get nothing under the Add-In menu what ever I try...

We are working on a strict environment where we have separate users for normal usage and local admin rights in our XP environment, so I use the "Run As..." when installing all the tools etc. This normally works for most tools, but now I wonder if this might be a problem?

Please advice...
Best regards
Gruffy

[«Midnight»]

Try forcing your menu to reset. I have not seen this mentioned in the forum for a while, but it used to help in cases where add-ins simply refused to appear. [It saved my bacon once a couple of years ago, but I have not had to do it since.]

Before you do this, there is a side effect you need to be aware of. This procedure will cause all your customizations to EA's menus and toolbar settings to be lost. [This is not actually a Sparx thing; it is inherited from the MS Office component library.] You will have to redo any customizations after you try this procedure.

What you will do is reset the EA menus. Start EA - you don't need to have a project open - and from the main menu choose Tools | Customize. Choose the Menu tab and click the Reset button.

Now exit and restart EA (I think you need to do this) and try loading your add-in.

If the above procedure works you should (finally, magically) see the Add-in menu, and it should be populated. The result should look like the EA documentation claims it does.

Let us know if this gets you going.

David

[Gruffy]

Hi there!

Thanks for the answer...but I had no luck with this. Same stuff....

However...as I mentioned above, I suspect the "admin rights" problems etc...so I thought a little about this and I now tried to start the EA application with the "Run As..." to specify my admin account login...and voila...there we have it. The menus for both DOORS and RealTime UML showed.

So, my guess is that something in EA does not handle the situation where one is not administrator on the machine, at least not when it comes to "addins". I will try and investigate if it is possible to install the addins using a normal user account and see if this helps.

But for now...I have a way to start EA (with admin account) to get the addins now, a little uncomfortable but at least doable. I think this could be treated either as a bug or possible a little more clarification in the manual/system requirements. (Maybe it is already there...will have to check... )

/Gruffy

UPDATE/EDIT:
It is not possible to install the MDG add-ins without admin rights...so my guess is that the installation of the MDG tools is registering stuff in the registry for the "installing user" (in my case admin user) and when the EA is run as a normal user, these things are not found and hence the add-ins are not loadable...would be nice if this could be fixed, but as mentioned above...I will survive with this for now. :-)

[«Midnight»]

Sorry I could not solve this one Gruffy,

At least you are 'unstuck' and can continue working for now.

It definitely sounds like EA - or more specifically the DOORS add-in or EA's reaction to the add-in - wants to touch something that it should not (without administrator rights).

This could be something as simple as writing to a file in the installation directory - something XP takes a dim view of.

The EA installation routine, at at least some of the add-in kits, ask if you are installing for the current user or everyone. Does the DOORS add-in do so?

Or could it be possible that the initial 'touch' of your DOORS environment (on the 'other' side from EA) requires administrator privileges to set itself up?

Who knows.

Bring this to the attention of Sparx support. You'll find an appropriate link on the Registered Users page of the Sparx Web site. Remember that the weekend has started for them, so you won't hear back until Monday.

David

[Gruffy]

David,

It seems that in our strict environment here, the non-admin-user-world, we have some trouble with this. I will send this through to Sparx, no doubt.

Just for information:
Neither the EA application or any of the MDG-products I have tested (DOORS & RealTime UML) can be installed without admin rights. This is actually pretty common, but most tools are usually runnable as non-admin after an installation using "RunAs..." with admin rights.
I do not think it has anything to do with our other DOORS tools as these are not used yet (no connection) and it has been the same when using the RealTime UML stuff.

Thanks again for nice support here. It is always great when you post your first post on a forum and you meet some nice people!

Best regards
Gruffy

[Frank Horn]

As far as I know EA takes the information which AddIns to load from nowhere but the current user key in the registry (that's where the name of the AddIn and the class name for the COM object to create are).

Don't know if this works, but maybe it's worth a try to log on as admin, save the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Sparx Systems\EAAddins key, and then log on as non-admin and add the key to the registry.

[Gruffy]

As far as I know EA takes the information which AddIns to load from nowhere but the current user key in the registry (that's where the name of the AddIn and the class name for the COM object to create are).

Don't know if this works, but maybe it's worth a try to log on as admin, save the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Sparx Systems\EAAddins key, and then log on as non-admin and add the key to the registry.

This worked great! I had sent a support request to Sparx about this as well...and the answer from them was that I needed to add stuff into my normal user account registry. (They included a reg-file for me.) But I also had trouble with the RealTime UML (same story) and this I solved using your idea here.

Great! Many thanx to all that helped me!
/Gruffy