4 replies to this topic

[nicolasr]

Hi,
some of my colleagues complained about a strange thing with all my installers. When the dialog "Ready to install" is confirmed with the "Install"-Button the progress dialog appears with caption "Installing productXY". However, the progress bar is set to 0 and the installer seems to do nothing for almost 30 seconds, then the UAC prompt comes up and after that the progress bar is run as expected.

I think that I have noticed similar long waits with MSI installers by other people, at least since the arrival of Vista.

What could cause the long wait?
The problem is not the long wait but the fact that the installer looks kind of crashed. That makes people nervous ;-)

My installers are derived from the simple template that comes with MSI SDK, I have not added any custom actions. Just the standard UI with a few files and shortcuts, all edited with Orca.

Thanks for any idea.

Nicolas

[Stefan Krueger]

Some time ago I discussed this problem in my blog:
http://msmvps.com/bl.../18/830140.aspx

[nicolasr]

thanks Stefan, I should follow your blog more closely :-)
I also thought about the delay being due to the signature verification. However, when uninstalling the software the delay is much shorter inspite of the UAC prompt. I will try to switch off system restore and see if that does have any effect.

Nicolas

[nicolasr]

Here are some test results:

On a freshly set up Vista PC I started my installer. The delay before the UAC is about 20 seconds.

Then I switched off the system restore functionality and started my installer again. The delay now is about 1 second!

Of course switching off system restore is inacceptable. But at least a note on the standard progress dialog that tells the user what is actually happening would be less scaring than the seemingly hanging installer.

Nick

[VBScab]

In a corporate deployment scenario - which this sounds like - why would disabling SR be unacceptable? If a machine breaks following a deployment, it gets rebuilt, surely? Then - in no particular order - you tackle the QA/Testing/Packaging teams to find out how the package got released.