I wonder if you have something in your temp folder and/or your ProgramData folder causing the problem.  When the install is created, it creates a temporary folder so that it can "uninstall or add features."  There are times when I have seen this go wonky and cause some issues.

So first, clear our your temp folder.  Second, open up your ProgramData folder and look for GUID folders.  Any that have StrataFrame related contents, delete them (might back them up first):

It fails on the very last screen "StrataFrame is now being configured". See attached screenshot.
Yes, I am an admin on my machine.

I saw your screenshot of the activate.exe not firing, but where in the install does it fail?  I don't think I have ever seen this much trouble with an install/update.  Do you have admin permissions on your local machine?

I am able to rebuild from source code. But how do I get SF to integrate with VS .NET?. Install still fails by the way after rebuild and adding dlls to GAC.

Yes.  Try to rebuild the source and then lets take a look.

I pretty much followed these step already minus rebuilding from source code...
See, installation never actually completes, I get that error message.  After installation I don't see any new SF related assemblies (and I did try adding them to GAC manually).

So rebuild from source code is my only option at this point?

Well, let's start over and do this.  I know that is has to be assembly related.

1. Uninstall SF from your local machine
2. Once uninstalled, ensure that there is nothing in the GAC that is SF related.
3. If you like, go ahead and remove the local SF files from the Program Files (x86) (or where you installed it).  You could just copy this to a backup location if you like.  This is just to make sure that there isn't anything else there.  Don't worry about the license, I will free that up so you don't have to mess with it.
4. Next, install the 1.7.3 build of SF.
5. After the install, check the GAC and the local folder.
6. Attempt to access the activation client again and see if you have the same results.

If none of that works, download the 1.7.3 source code also and rebuild it.  If you have done this in the past, then most likely the files in the (c:\Program Files(x86)\Common Files\MicroFour\StrataFrame) have been updated and this could be the source of the problem.

Hi Trent,

I did all that. I did check GAC, and unistalled all MicroFour dls, before installing new version. I also made sure there no MicroFour dlls left in Program Files/MicroFour/StrataFrame/Assemlies . Like I said I did try manual clean up to avoid this kind of versions conflicts. But nothing seems to work.

Well, let's look at a couple of things. First, look in your GAC (c:\windows\assembly) and see if you have more than one copy of SF in there.  Look or the "MicroFour StrataFrame ..." assemblies.  Second, I imagine that the activation dialog is looking for the wrong assemblies.

I imagine that you have most likely built the older assemblies before using the source code, then you installed the new build.  So my first guess would be that you have multiple SF assemblies in the GAC that do not match even though the have the same assembly (not file) version.  Clear our your GAC, make sure that the new ones are in there, then try again.

If you don't have any luck with this let me know, but I bet this is the most likely culprit. 

It's not just Activation form. It's pretty much every SF related menu item in VS.NET and SF demo sample Apps.