The thing was, it worked as a devlopment system installed on the same system, but not as the deployed version.
It's only Windows 7, all other Operating systems work.
So I knew it wasn't code, although I checked pkgs and everything anyway.
So David Martinko made a suggestion to check the system32 before and after so I did that.
That didn't tell me much, but by then I had taken a directory of the entire system before and after
installing the development system and with just the deployed version.
After comparing the entire system, the only differences of course were the development system.
So I got to thinking and …..
This next info is important to the solution and adds to the mystery.
my app sits in c:\navigate\programs and the bin folder is in c:\navigate\bin. This is because this was a VD7 app not so long ago and to get them both to play together at the same time, I registered the software in the bin folder, then moved the termlist.cfg to the programs folder. Then I took the old VD7 termlist.cfg and moved it back to the bin folder. That way, both versions 14.1 and VD7 had their own termlist.cfg. So I'm kind of stuck with the folders like this for now. Believe me, it worked. Convoluted but it worked.
I changed the register.ini to point to the programs folder where my app's EXEs sit.
After changing the register.ini to point specifically to the programs folder…..
I took the entire bin folder from a development system and copied it into the bin folder of the deployed system.
I took the entire bin folder from a development system and copied it into the programs folder of the deployed system.
Overkill, but I was deperate and was trying anything by now.
I also made sure that the necessary crdb, crqe, etc Crystal files files were in both folders
I reregistered the software so that the termlist.cfg is now in the programs folder where it should be.
Voila, now it works.
Here's the weird part. I really needed to know which darn file or files caused the problem so I could update the installation program. One by one, I deleted each file and tested. I could not get it to break. I deleted every single one back to my original Vista, XP, 2003 configuration which has always worked. Everything still worked.
So I scratched my head and I figure that due to some security issue with Windows 7 and the way that DA registers their software, everything I did was not really necessary. Either the registrations in the MSMs with Installshield or the Termlist.cfg wanted everything to be there where it was going to be or it wouldn't register.
Somewhere in the threads, I believe I read something about this "Unknown Database Connector" error being a registration issue.
But why in this case, it's ONLY Windows 7, I don't know. What I do know is this, what a pain in the $%&# this one was.
Maybe someone has a notion of a reason why this worked the way it did.
It works now, that's the main thing.
Hope this information helps somebody down the line.