Upgraded to the latest version of VC yesterday (5.6.8, build 18625). Now, all jobs that execute SQL-Server 2008 SSIS packages are failing.

Whenever one of these jobs kicks off, I get an interactive dialog box telling me a Windows message is waiting. When I view the message, it tells me that an APPCRASH event occurred by SSISExecute2008.exe.

Because this is a critical error, I am downgrading back to the prior version. Please advise asap.

Does it work better if you:

1. uninstall VisualCron
2. Install this version: http://neteject.com/down...Cron/VisualCron5.6.8.exe 

---

At this time, I cannot try installing the new version as this is my production system that's being affected and I can't take the chance of additional jobs failing.

Can you tell me why these "Interactive Services Dialog Detection" warnings are appearing? Is there a way to turn them off?

The problem is most likely that the upgrade did not overwrite some files. That is why you need to uninstall old and install again.

We will investigate why these files were not overwritten.

The reason why you get this popup is because the crash. It is a setting somewhere in windows system - not sure where.

---

Ok, I have uninstalled the previous version of VC and performed a fresh install of the latest version. I am now monitoring the server to ensure jobs execute as scheduled.

I've also found information on the "Interactive Service Dialog Detection" issue. It appears it could be generated as a result of a partial incompatibility with a Visual Cron component and Windows Server 2008. Although the information below was written specifically for Windwows Vista, it still applies to Windows Server 2008 as well. See below:

Services that interact with the desktop were never very popular as it introduces security issues. As of Vista they aren't allowed and you can not interact with the desktop from a service anymore. The problem is that it is a security issue. If your service starts a new application then it is started at the security level of the service (SYSTEM if you install as a default service). This is very bad. Imagine running notepad as an administrator. Not good.

What will introduce an even bigger problem for you is the service isolation. Prior to Vista services ran in session 0 along with all user applications (ignoring terminal services). This was a security issue. As of Vista all services run in session 0 while all other apps run in different sessions. Hence no UI shown by a service will ever be visible to any user on the system, not even a message box. See the problem yet? That app you just started is being run in a view that a user can never see. Enter the ISD. It detects an attempt to display something and displays the dialog to warn you that it will fail. You can read all about it here: http://download.microsof...8184a/Session0_Vista.doc 

The goal is to get the application running in the context of the logged in user(s). Therefore you need to run an app that runs in the user's context. The only easy way to do this is with a program that starts when the user logs in through the registry or the Startup group. This application should be used to periodically poll for another application and ensure that it restarts. This completely eliminates security issues and the service isolation problem. Of course if the user terminates this helper app then there is nothing you can do about it (with a service or otherwise) but that is not a bad thing. However if you use the registry to start the helper app and you don't display any UIs then the user will likely be unaware of the helper application at all.

If you really need a service for other reasons then you have little choice but to use IPC to communicate between the service and the helper app. You still can't restart the application, or even the helper app, but at least you have a service running.

This is correct and actually what we are doing. Normally, the service is executing this file in hidden mode - which has no interaction with desktop. But, since this major crash, Windows is trying to show a Windows debug window (not from VisualCron). When showing this message it realizes that it is in "background" mode and needs to show the application message on the protected desktop.

Normally, no unhandled messages should occur but because of the install problem some files were not replaced which caused a dll problem, this message will appear.

This will happen to all applications that are not run in desktop mode (when you have this debug message enabled in Windows).

---

So if I understand you correctly, it was the in-place upgrade of VisualCron that caused the crash, and the crash is what's causing the interactive dialog boxes to appear.

What can be done to prevent this in the future? Perhaps something to disable an in-place upgrade, forcing the user to uninstall the previous version of VC first before installing the latest version?

Correct, and in next version we will make sure that files are updated properly (which caused the original update problem). Thank you for your report.

---