Cannot use windows gnucash - file save crashes app

[Wm...]

Wed, 30 Sep 2015 21:23:53 
<CABqJQt3rDQbvf0ZwQtC92QLBybuaepxTvQNSnWFfbeETKOHaTw at mail.gmail.com>
Michael Jasiak <michael.jasiak at gmail.com> wrote...

>Hi Gnucash list -
>
>   On my first attempt at running gnucash for windows:
>
>1) Every attempt to save hangs - as in, putting in a file name causes
>gnucash to hang indefinitely until I hit the red X and windows asks if I
>want to send a crash report.  Setting up a new account also hangs when it
>asks me to save.  I think it's trying to close some old account file that
>doesn't exist, but I can't be sure - I tried to change my paths at first
>install to not use my C:\ (for SSD space limit reasons), and everything's
>gone wrong since.

see rest of thread and related posts in other threads re 2.6.8

>2) Windows install data persists even when the app is uninstalled - I mean
>*really* persists.  I know this because even after an uninstall gnucash
>would still find my D:\  file paths - removing .gnucash and anything in
>AppData didn't help; I had to finally resort to gratuitously removing the
>gnucash entries I found in the registry.  Even then, I still don't get the
>welcome splash screen after cleaning those entries - the "default" save
>directory is restored ("Documents") but gnucash still doesn't give me the
>"Welcome - try A? B? C?" screen.

This is not necessarily a gnc issue, I can recommend the PortableApps 
version if you want Registry Agnostic.

>#######################################
>
>Per #1 - I'm running Win 7 x64 (but only doing a 32-bit install of 2.6.8 -
>did not find an x64 binary)
>  - I've located the trace in AppData, and it shows the following entries:
>
>* 21:00:30  WARN <gnc.app-utils> Could not spawn perl: Failed to execute
>child process (No such file or directory)
>* 21:01:48  CRIT <gnc.core-utils> gnc_uri_get_components: assertion 'uri !=
>NULL && strlen (uri) > 0' failed
>* 21:01:48  CRIT <GLib> g_ascii_strcasecmp: assertion 's1 != NULL' failed
>* 21:02:06  CRIT <GLib> g_utf8_to_utf16: assertion 'str != NULL' failed
>
>  - I was trying to save xml only - I did not set up any sqlite or postgres
>backend.

strange, the postgres SaveAs actually works whereas the XML and sqlite3 
don't work here

>#######################################
>
>Per #2 - If there's a way to remove all data on uninstall that would be
>great - or a doc that describes how.  I've read quite a bit of incredible
>documentation while looking for this (which is great!) but I can't find
>anything about what ended up installed where.  Thinking I may have done
>something wrong at install is reinforced terribly when I remove software
>only to find it hung onto my last known settings.

gnc is relatively clean and certainly cleaner than most Win apps, I 
can't think offhand of anything personal that is left in the Registry 
unless your data file is "MyPornCollectionAccounts" or similar

>#######################################
>
>I hope to give this a try on Mac or Linux, but at the moment my only option
>is Win 7.   Anything else you need or want me to try?  I'd love to give
>this a go!

Wait a few days if you want to use SaveAs, other methods work.

-- 
Wm...