Lenovo M93P Tiny running Windows 10 Pro x64 version 1903. Roon version 1.6 (build 416) stable (64 bit). The Roon Installer versions not known, since they aren’t stated on the Download page, but the new one was digitally signed April 24, 2019 and the old one (see below) was digitally signed November 19, 2018.
Network Details (Including networking gear model/manufacturer and if on WiFi/Ethernet)
N/A
Audio Devices (Specify what device you’re using and its connection type - USB/HDMI/etc.)
N/A
Description Of Issue
I have very recently upgraded this machine and another (very different) PC from Windows 10 version 1809 to 1903 (with current July updates). Now when I try to run the current Roon or the current Roon Server installation files, I get an immediate pop up for RoonInstaller64.exe (or RoonServerInstaller64.exe) - Application Error - The application was unable to start correctly (0xc000007b).
This has happened on two different PCs, both with new (separate) downloads from your site and with an older download of the Roon installer that had previously been used to install Roon to the Lenovo successfully in January while it was running Windows version 1809.
This strongly suggests to me that Windows 10 version 1903 (with current July updates) has introduced an incompatibility with the current Roon installers, which previously worked on Windows version 1809.
Obviously I’m not really in a position to diagnose this further. The installers fail before any logs are created, and the Lenovo is a very clean installation, but with the Windows 10 1809 to 1903 feature update installed.
I dont know why you are seeing that error, but it could be .NET framework related. I would suggest repairing/reinstalling the .NET framework version you currently have installed to see if that helps. If not then as @Rugby say you can rollback to 1809.
I have my Roon Server running on WIndows 10 1903 and it all installed fine. Mine was a clean install though and not a feature update from 1809.
There are reports of issues with on screen keyboards in the Roon Controller app on Win 10 1903 so I have left all my controllers on 1809 for now.
It is not uncommon, sadly, for Windows Updates to have issues. I have found that sometimes if an update is rolled back and then later re-done everything works the second time around.
I rolled Windows back to version 1809 and confirmed the problem only occurs on my upgraded 1903 installation. I’ll stay on 1809 for a while longer until I hear more.
Roon Support still needs to look into this. Otherwise a lot of others, especially new customers, may run into this eventually and not be able to roll back. As the developers, Roon is in the best position to open an issue with Microsoft, if necessary.
I did a clean install of Windows 1903 on another PC and then downloaded and installed Roon there. It went fine. The problem, therefore, is connected with the upgrade to version 1903.
I have done additional research on this. The problem of the Roon installers for Windows failing turns out to be very reproducible, but is not related to how the computer is updated to Windows Version 1903. It can be reproduced both on upgrades from Version 1809 to 1903 and on clean installs of Version 1903.
The key is whether or not certain settings under Windows Security -> App & browser control -> Exploit protection settings have been changed from their default values to increase security. In particular, if the ASLR related values are changed to “On by default”, the Roon Windows installers will start failing with an Application error. Reset those values, and the installers will work fine.
Microsoft must have changed something regarding ASLR on 1903, but whether this introduced a bug in the OS or exposed a bug in the Roon installers is something Roon Support would need to investigate.
Looking at my Roon Server running a clean install of 1903, on which I had no issue installing Roon, the only ASLR setting that is not set to ON is this one (I haven’t changed any of these settings from the out of box defaults);
Presumably then setting this to ON would break the Roon installer? I’ll give it a try and see what happens!
Yes, that’s what I found. As soon as I changed that one to On, the installer would fail immediately, before it even got to its splash screen. I didn’t try to test the other ASLR settings in different combinations, just all off or all on. I’d already spent more than enough time on this problem.
P.S. An expected side effect is that you can’t uninstall Roon either (not that you’d want to) with this setting On. (That’s expected because when you uninstall a program on Windows it uses the same install (setup) program with different settings to do that.)
