5 replies to this topic

[FrankSpierings]

I hope someone can help me with the following issue.

I create MSI's which need to be farely open for platform changes. These MSI's offten need to set data to a user's home drive.
The home drive of the current user is described in HKCU\Volatile Environment\Homedrive.
I read this value with Reglocator (and Appsearch) table. Next i put the found value in the MYHOMEDRIVE (public) property. When i run this installation under an admin user, my custom action, which consist of:
"Msgbox Session.Property("MYHOMEDRIVE")",
will display the correct reg. value.
When i run this under a domain user, the custom action won't return anything at all.

I tried rescheduling the action, but since i already put it after installinitialize, i think it should normally work.... right?!.

Also it gets a bit weirder (for me at least ).
When i advertise the same package under a domain user, and next activate installation by using the advertised shortcut, or i execute a forced repair after installation, the custom action displays the correct value.

So i searched uncle google. -can't find it.
I searched mr. SDK. -no answers there....

I hope someone can enlighten me here

Thx in advance

[Stefan Krueger]

I'd suggest you generate a verbose log file to see if your custom action gets called at all. The log should also include some information about the AppSearch results.

[sjimmerson]

Does a domain user have permissions to read HKCU\Volatile Environment\Homedrive? It probably works when advertising the installation because the installation runs with elevated privileges by default in this scenario.

[FrankSpierings]

Stefan Krueger:

When i modify the custom action to:

Msgbox "Output: " &Session.Property("MYHOMEDRIVE")

It will display : "Output: "

-- > so it does run.

sjimmerson:

Also i checked with Regmon, it does find the correct value for the specified regkey.
(it should find it since the current user can always read (write) his own registry hive.)

It all seems correct to me. It works under an admin user. I see no reason why a user shouldn't be allowed this action. But still. The messagebox only works correct under Domain User privilige, when executing a forced repair, or install after advertisement.

Oh yeah .. Stefan:

I checked with debugview. The log file does show the MYHOMEDRIVE="H:" property. So MSI knows about it, but he doesn't wanna tell me

Thx for the first posts guys.
Hope there are new ideas

[FrankSpierings]

New fact:

The custom action will also work when i do a silent install. The scheduling of the custom action doesn't seem to matter (as long as its after Appsearch action), although executing it deferred will not work, but this is as expected, since properties cannot be reached that way from deferred actions.(only with CustomActionData...)

Could this maybe a bug? Or does it have something to do with the parsing of properties -- UI --> Exec ?!

Note that the custom action (showing the value) is scheduled in the Execute Sequence.

[FrankSpierings]

Lol found it

With the help of u Stefan (found a post on newsgroups)

and with help of

-Chris Gouge
Microsoft Windows Installer Team (another post on the groups).

It has to do with the securecustomproperties.

Since an admin is allowed to transfer the poperties, but a regular user isn't.

More information (for peeps with the same problem) -->

http://groups.google...7ef84f8f0ba99db

or search google groups with:

"Ignoring disallowed property" msi.

Thx a bunch guys. I'm happy again