I own a small computer networking company in Kansas City. I had a new client (this being the first call placed) that called with a problem with this software. It wouldn't even install. Since I am the owner I had my 2 techs handle all the other calls while I researched this one.
Here's my TALE of how I fixed it (in ~12 hours).
The machine was XP Pro w/SP2. NeatReceipts wouldn't install. It said SP2 was required. Hmmm. I used CCleaner to give it a thorough cleaning. I "chkdsk /f" 'ed it. I defragged it. I installed SP3 for XP (this was after the official M$ release, so no beta-release of SP3). Boom it installed. New problem was it wouldn't open. After about 10 seconds it would come up and say ~ "sorry the program experienced a problem..." blah blah blah. I couldn't get ANY of the EXEs in the program folder to open. ALL said the same thing (gave the same error). I won't (and couldn't possibly) repeat the processes I went through uninstalling, installing, uninstalling, installing, etc. ALL NR components and SQL components. The only thing I can confirm is that I rarely got the database service to start. Even when it did, the program still gave the exact same error as always.
Then, by pure dumb luck! I decided to install SQL 2005 Express Edition by downloading it straight from M$. IT WOULDN'T INSALL!!! BUT I got a rare 'helpful error message' when trying to install it. It said that either .NET framework 2.0 wasn't installed or was corrupt. Add/Remove Programs showed it as installed so I downloaded the .NET Verifier. It failed the test. I tried to uninstall ALL .NET framework versions. ALL failed to uninstall so I had to get the .NET Cleanup utility to clean them off. I used CCleaner to make sure anything left over was removed from the registry. I downloaded .NET 1.0, .NET 1.1, and .NET 2.0 directly from M$. Neat! When done installing them, I ran the .NET Verifier. Sure enough...they FAILED! I went to Windows Updates website and apparently just installing the plain-jane ones they have available for download aren't good enough. There were updates for each version. I installed ALL critical and ALL recommended updates. I was then able to successfully install SQL Express 2005! I ran CCleaner one more time, and then I installed NeatReceipts one more time. (**Somewhere in my rambling in the prior paragraph I forgot to mention I downloaded NeatRecipts v3.1.3.**) IT WORKED!!! OMG!!! IT WORKED!!!
So to sum it up...download the .NET Verifier (when searching for it, type "dotnet verifier"). If it fails the test, uninstall them or download the .NET Cleanup Utility (when searching for it, type "dotnet cleanup"). Remove ALL .NET versions. Use Windows Updates to reinstall all .NET versions. TEST them with the verifier before going any further. Download and install SQL Express 2005 from M$. Use CCleaner repeatedly until it finds no registry problems. Install NeatReceipts v3.1.3. Whalah!
Again, this was my experience and had I not thought to try to manually install SQL Express 2005, I probably would have never found a fix.
And to all a good night!
