Ubuntu
usb-creator package

[Lucid Alpha 3] usb-creator.exe does not accept ISO selection on Windows XP system

Bug #527972 reported by Jeff Lane 
28
This bug affects 5 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
usb-creator (Ubuntu)
Won't Fix
High
Unassigned
Ubuntu lucid-updates

Bug Description

Binary package hint: usb-creator

the Windows version of usb-creator included in the Lucid ISOs does not work.

Test system is a Lenovo S10 netboot running Windows XP SP3.

I pulled usb-creator.exe from the Alpha 3 Lucid netbook ISO and attempted to create a bootable USB disk. Unfortunately, this fails. When usb-creator runs, the disk image panel is empty. I click "Other..." and select the Lucid Alpha 3 netbook iso and click Open. The panel does not update listing the chosen image, and I am unable to continue at this point.

Searching around on the web shows that this is NOT an uncommon problem and goes back at least to Karmic (which did not include usb-creator.exe in all the ISOs).

Since usb-creator.exe is included in the ISOs and USB Install docs say to use usb-creator.exe to create a bootable USB device in Windows, this is a pretty big issue.

What does work:
unetbootin
usb-creator on a Karmic system.

I also tried Universal-USB-Installer.exe from PendriveLinux.com (listed as an alternative in the USB Install docs) and that too fails to work with Lucid as Lucid is not listed in the list of distributions on the latest UUI.

So I was able to create a bootable USB device using usb-creator in Karmic, thus this issue seems to only affect the Windows version of this program.

This really needs to be fixed if usb-creator.exe is going to be included in the ISOs.

Tags: iso-testing
Ubuntu QA Website (ubuntuqa)
tags: added: iso-testing
Jeff Lane  (bladernr)
summary: - usb-creator.exe does not accept ISO selection on Windows XP system
+ [Alpha 3 Testing] usb-creator.exe does not accept ISO selection on
+ Windows XP system
summary: - [Alpha 3 Testing] usb-creator.exe does not accept ISO selection on
- Windows XP system
+ [Lucid Alpha 3] usb-creator.exe does not accept ISO selection on Windows
+ XP system
Evan (ev)
Changed in usb-creator (Ubuntu):
assignee: nobody → Evan Dandrea (ev)
importance: Undecided → High
milestone: none → ubuntu-10.04-beta-2
Revision history for this message
mgcul8r (mgcul8r) wrote :

rename the iso to the EXACT NAME that universal-usb-installer-exe dissplays. i used it to make a bootable live usb stick with persistence. i noticed that the program looks for ubuntu-9.10-desktop i386.iso but the downloaded file name is ubuntu-9.10-desktop-i386.iso (notice it's missing the - between desktop and i386) just rename the file downloaded to the exact name its looking for, and it will work.

Revision history for this message
Jeff Lane  (bladernr) wrote :

@mgcul8r that's just another potential problem... the correct behaviour (for any of the tools, be it usb-creator, universal-usb-installer or unetbootin) should be to allow the user to select an iso uisng a standard file selection window and go from there...

Limiting it to specific filenames (unless there's a reason for doing so, obviously) creates a usability problem when, as you've pointed out, the filenames aren't the same...

and what about variants?

For example, Ubuntu, Kubuntu and Xubuntu (at least on cdimages.ubuntu.com) all use the same file name (e.g. karmic-desktop-i386.iso)

What if I want to pull each of those down, using save-as to get all three ISOs into one directory, build CDs and install to try them out to decide which I like better?

That, IMHO at least, is reason enough to not tie them down to hard-coded specific file names.

Revision history for this message
Steve Langasek (vorlon) wrote :

Hi Evan,

We're not going to make it for beta2 on this, but where do we stand on having this fixed for release?

Changed in usb-creator (Ubuntu Lucid):
milestone: ubuntu-10.04-beta-2 → ubuntu-10.04
Revision history for this message
Steve Langasek (vorlon) wrote :

Pushing this back to SRU; appears to only affect the Windows executable, so isn't directly relevant to ISO builds anyway.

Changed in usb-creator (Ubuntu Lucid):
milestone: ubuntu-10.04 → lucid-updates
Revision history for this message
alexey (alexey-kozhatkin) wrote :

thx, i used Universal-USB-Installer.exe

Revision history for this message
David Tombs (dgtombs) wrote :

Evan, did you mean to set this to Triaged? I can't confirm this myself because usb-creator.exe just quits for me in a VM.

Evan (ev)
Changed in usb-creator (Ubuntu Lucid):
assignee: Evan Dandrea (ev) → nobody
Changed in usb-creator (Ubuntu):
assignee: Evan Dandrea (ev) → nobody
Revision history for this message
lokster (lokiisyourmaster) wrote :

I found what causes this bug.
It's the missing 7z.dll in the windows build.
A workaround is to install 7zip manually. If you have 7zip installed, usb-creator recognises the iso files.
The moment you uninstall 7zip, usb-creator stops working.

Revision history for this message
NoahY (noahy) wrote :

I can confirm the workaround in post #7. Installing 7zip indeed allows the iso file to appear in the selection box.

Changed in usb-creator (Ubuntu):
status: New → Confirmed
Launchpad Janitor (janitor)
Changed in usb-creator (Ubuntu Lucid):
status: New → Confirmed
Adolfo Jayme Barrientos (fitojb)
no longer affects: usb-creator (Ubuntu Lucid)
Jeff Lane  (bladernr)
Changed in usb-creator (Ubuntu):
status: Confirmed → Won't Fix
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