ISTA-P 2.53.5 Native Installation (from torrent) Issues

[tinkerman]

As some of you are aware, a standalone installation of ISTA-P 2.53.5 has been circulating through torrents. You can check yourself through a 'BTDigg' site search (or some other forums).

I encountered a recurring problem in my (multiple) installation attempts on Windows XP Pro SP3 (in the Administrator account).

[ Symptoms ]
Executing ‘START-ISTA.exe’ (as Administrator) results in the following:
1. ‘Administrator account’ gets ‘disabled/locked’ in the background ( it is still possible to go into ISTA-P ).
2. [After having executed ‘START-ISTA.exe’ (as Administrator)] cannot execute ‘STOP-ISTA.exe’ as Administrator – can only execute ‘STOP-ISTA.exe’ directly by double-clicking. Hence, the Administrator account’s password and account itself is already affected(disabled/blocked – which only becomes apparent later).
3. Upon reboot, the ‘Administrator’ password does not work (Begin to wonder about mental health, but realize it is fine).
4. It is only possible to access the system by using a command utility/bootable disk utility such as ‘Offline NT Password & Registry Editor’ (from pogostick.net, which involves loading bootable iso/cd image, allows wiping the admin account password to ‘blank’), and all seems fine until executing ‘START-ISTA.exe’ (as Administrator).
*Note: I initially tried to use ‘Ophcrack’, to see if the admin password had been changed, but this utility could not even find any relevant system partitions! Hence, I am afraid that there is more going on here than just a password change or account block scheme.
5. Boot scan and regular scan with AVAST anti-virus shows no indication of malware or viruses, not even suspicious files.

[ Questions ]
1. Has anyone else encountered this issue?
2. Have I missed some step(s) or do I have problematic installation files?

[ Setup Notes ]
1. Windows XP Pro SP3 (Guest OS running in VWware Workstation 10 in Windows 7 Ultimate Host OS).
2. Copied ‘apps’ folder to ‘D:’ drive and other files to ‘C:’ drive.
3. Tried all instructions(3 different ones from different forums) exactly.
* Including additional pointers for Windows XP:
For windows XP, copy "ISIS" folder to:
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\
and "Workuser" folder to :
C:\Documents and Settings\
4. Network adaptor(‘card’) MAC address update performed in the XML files, but actual network connection disabled during setup and operation. Also did not perform the ISIS network connection/registration (since all necessary daten are already in the D: drive.

Thanks.


***UPDATE***
I tried multiple reinstallation attempts in Windows XP Pro SP3 as follows, and all installations still produced the same issue of the Admin account becoming ‘disabled/blocked’(in the background) resulting in not being able to login with original password upon rebooting.

The main changes attempted were:

1. Alternate folder directory(paths)
[ Method A (Fail) ]
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\ - added ISIS folder
C:\Documents and Settings\ - added Workuser folder

[ Method B (Fail) ]
By creating new ‘Users’ & ‘ProgramData’ folders normally not present in Windows XP’s C: directory
C:/ProgramData/ - added ISIS folder
C:/Users/ - added Workuser folder

2. Running the ‘.exe’ files normally (in Admin mode).

3. Running the ‘.exe’ files in Windows 2000 ‘Compatibility Mode’ (in Admin mode).
*Results in the ISTA-P UI to not show (only the WSM Jumpgate window running over Desktop).

All combinations of methods above, ALL resulted in the Admin account’s password not working after running ‘START-ISTA.exe’ (confirmed when trying to run ‘STOP-ISTA.exe’, which presented an error pop-up window) and trying to login after rebooting(previous password is no longer valid).

This version of the program and/or the instructions(so far encountered online) seem incompatible with Windows XP. I’d be glad to be proven wrong.

I’m now considering trying on Windows 7, as it seems Windows 7 has been the main OS for installation.

[kansharma]

Hi! Did you ever get it to work on XP?