"Regarding the problem " .... "I recently tried to install EpiData Analysis on my laptop but upon running the setupepidatastat.exe file I get the following msg:

Runtime Error (at 5:598): Internal Error: Failed to expand shell folder constant "userdocs".

To understand the message you should know that EpiData Analysis tries to do the following during installation: 1. unzip the installation setup file to a number of files. 2. place these files in a structured number of folders 3. adds a line to the "...ini" files with the name of the working folder. This is done via an internal constant called "userdocs".

Often when I am teaching EpIData the course has as part of it to install the files. And usually the situation in computer lab rooms is such that users (including teachers) have no rights to the machine at all. - except all rights in the subfolder: "c:\documents and settings\username\my documents"

In that case I install to a sub folder, e.g.: "c:\documents and settings\username\my documents\epidatapgm" and chooses: "c:\documents and settings\username\my documents\epidata" as the working folder. It is the latter which has the internal name "userdocs"

And it always worked except for one time where I then installed onto a USB stick (to e:\epidata) and afterwards copied that folder onto the pc with all subfolders.

So in your case I would: 1. Get a copy of epidatastat.exe on a usb stick and copy that exe file alone to the c drive (or d ...) 2. execute the exe file which will then create a miminal subfolder structure and if this also fails it means that you cannot create subfolder's on your pc and something is really ackward. Reinstall windows or other similar. 3. if the minimal folder works then I would copy a complete installation onto a usb stick and from there onto the pc.

Hope this helps - in all cases the installation does nothing but copying files and creating subfolders.

So all in all the

Internal Error: Failed to expand shell folder constant "userdocs". implies that your specification of the "userdocs" is not appropriate. Could it be that the operating system is not XP, but e.g. windows 95 or 98 ?

Jens lauritsen EpiData Association