Installation Issues With the JAWS Scripts For Visual Studio Code
Doug Lee
This document explains what happened on Saturday, March 9, 2024, during the release of the collaborative JAWS
scripts for Visual Studio Code by Jeff Bishop and this author, Doug Lee.
The events on Saturday caused this author to retract the scripts until further investigation and resolution
could be achieved.
The resulting re-release, the only change being in documentation and script revision number, was published
on Monday, March 11.
The new release included a Zip alongside the installer, together with instructions on how to install from
the Zip if necessary.
This installation would fix any problems resulting from an incomplete installation of the first release.
Revision history of this document:
- March 11, 2024
- Initial publication.
Types of Trouble Reports
There were two types of trouble reports:
- Windows Defender complaints:
For some users, Windows Defender flagged the script installer as possibly containing malware.
(The identification of malware was accomplished via a heuristic algorithm, indicated in the Windows Defender
report by a trailing "ml" (for "machine learning") on the tag identifying what was found.)
This complaint was determined to be a false positive.
This is a common problem for software installers, especially for frequently updated or not widely used
software. All remaining material in this document refers to the other report type.
- Installer failure error message, then report of success, then no scripts found:
Some users' installations were interrupted with a failure message. This was then followed by a report of
success, but JAWSKey+Q in Visual Studio Code thereafter did not indicate that the scripts were
running.
The precise cause of this issue was not determined; but since the users reporting this issue were using a
previous version of the scripts and reported loss of that functionality, the initial release of these
scripts was retracted to allow time for investigation without further reduction of user script
functionality.
Possible Causes of the Installation Error Issues
Two possible causes were identified, of which this author considers the second to be most likely among
reports received:
- Microsoft's deprecation of VBScript:
In October of 2023, Microsoft announced the intention to deprecate the VBScript language, with eventual
plans to remove support for the language from Windows.
This plan was not expected to result in script installer problems by the time of this script release, but
the language explaining Microsoft's plans did not include a specific timeline for removal of support.
Absence of VBScript support could produce the reported messages and results,
because the script installer includes some VBScript code to manage situations when Freedom Scientific
provides scripts for the same application for which scripts are being installed.
(Freedom Scientific has been distributing a small script set for Visual Studio Code starting in JAWS 2021.)
- Collision of old and new custom scripts:
The script installer builds two files during installation that would already have been present for people
who used the older custom scripts. Adverse interaction between script versions could occur if the installer
modified those files, and error messages would result if the installer did not modify them.
The files in question are
VisualStudioCode.jss and VisualStudioCode.jsb.
Reason For Script Retraction
The specific reason for the script release retraction on Saturday was the apparent reduction in
functionality being caused by attempts to install the new scripts over a previous set of Visual Studio Code
scripts that had been distributed by Jeff without an installer.
In typical "do no harm" fashion, the retraction was meant to prevent further reduction in functionality
immediately for members of Jeff's BITS class, where a significant number of participants were reportedly
using the original scripts and wanting to use the updated version.