Error 1402 - Runtime Errors - InstallSite Forum

Hi there,

I have this problem being reported very seldomly from users of various apps for which I have built the installs using WiX. In this particular example, the error reads:
Could not open key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\Serif.PanoramaPlus\CLSID. Verify that you have sufficient access to that key, or contact your support personnel.

I retreived a log file of the installation from this particular user, and the failiure extract is like this:
MSI (s) (FC:14) [00:20:18:729]: Executing op: RegOpenKey(,Key=CLSID\{45E01088-E097-4FDB-907C-7B19E0E0AE3D}\Verb,,BinaryType=0)
MSI (s) (FC:14) [00:20:18:729]: Executing op: RegAddValue(,,)
WriteRegistryValues: Key: \Software\Classes\CLSID\{45E01088-E097-4FDB-907C-7B19E0E0AE3D}\Verb, Name: , Value:
MSI (s) (FC:14) [00:20:18:739]: Executing op: RegOpenKey(,Key=CLSID\{45E01088-E097-4FDB-907C-7B19E0E0AE3D},,BinaryType=0)
MSI (s) (FC:14) [00:20:18:739]: Executing op: RegAddValue(,Value=PanoramaPlus Catalog,)
WriteRegistryValues: Key: \Software\Classes\CLSID\{45E01088-E097-4FDB-907C-7B19E0E0AE3D}, Name: , Value: PanoramaPlus Catalog
MSI (s) (FC:14) [00:20:18:739]: Executing op: RegOpenKey(,Key=Serif.PanoramaPlus\CLSID,,BinaryType=0)
MSI (s) (FC:14) [00:20:18:739]: Executing op: RegAddValue(,Value={45E01088-E097-4FDB-907C-7B19E0E0AE3D},)
WriteRegistryValues: Key: \Software\Classes\Serif.PanoramaPlus\CLSID, Name: , Value: {45E01088-E097-4FDB-907C-7B19E0E0AE3D}
MSI (s) (FC:14) [00:20:18:739]: Note: 1: 1402 2: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\Serif.PanoramaPlus\CLSID 3: 5
Error 1402. Could not open key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\Serif.PanoramaPlus\CLSID. System error 5. Verify that you have sufficient access to that key, or contact your support personnel.
MSI (s) (FC:14) [00:20:20:972]: Product: Serif PanoramaPlus 3 -- Error 1402. Could not open key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Classes\Serif.PanoramaPlus\CLSID. System error 5. Verify that you have sufficient access to that key, or contact your support personnel.
Action ended 00:20:21: InstallFinalize. Return value 3.

So, as you can see, everything was being added to the registry in the usual way until it hit this particular point where it did the RegOpenKey, RegAddValue and then reported a failiure in the opening (so why did it move onto writing?).

What is interesting is that in all cases of this type of error reported back that I've been able to investigate, the key already existed. This ties in with most Google results in stating the obvious - it's a permissions issue. however, the two times I've been able to follow it up as far as checking registry permissions, they all had adequate permissions and have merily edited and/or deleted the problematic key in order to acheive a succesful install.

So, has anyone experienced this sort of thing and have any recomendations as to how to solve it? Of course, I'd like to write this type of com registration without contraveining ICE33 and use the ProgID and CLSID tables, but I haven't figured out how to do this in WiX yet (and most people recommend against it anyway).

Furthermore, I was looking into forcing write permissions to keys I'm adding with the LockPermissions table, but the only UserID that all systems have is 'Everyone' and I very much doubt that system administrators would appreciate me setting a reg key to give full control to everyone!

Thanks for any sugestions/thoughts you can put forward,
Gareth at Serif