7 replies to this topic

[jhunt]

Hi there

Every time a particular user tries to start an application installed with my installer, Microsoft Office 2000 installer starts up.

The user is logged in as administrator when they install the product.The problem occurs on Windows 2000 Pro when the user running the App is not an administrator. When they are an administrator there is no problem.

If ignoring the Office Installer is cancelled the applications seems to run fine.

Can anyone help me solve this?

Thanks

Justin

[Leigh Ravenhall]

Enable MSI logging on that machine.  (I can't remember what the registry key is, you should be able to find it if you search the forums)

This should tell you which component is broken and calling the Windows Installer repair.

After you have those details, post back and see if any of us have any suggestions.

[jhunt]

Unfortunately the user is in Tokyo and I can't seem to recreate the problem here, so it could be a bit tricky. But I will try that.

It seems to be a user permissions / user profile issue though rather than a damaged component. (Though logging would indeed help me isolate which particular component.)

In the version that the user has installed there is no

ALLUSERS = 1

entry in the property table. As far as I am aware this should affect only shortcuts to the applications executable. Am I wrong on this?

Is there anything I should know about permissions and windows installer?

Thanks

[jhunt]

OK I was able to recreate the problem here.

The new installer sets the property ALLUSERS to  1

This seems to solve the problem. For the record the problem component (found using Win 2000 Event Viewer) was with Microsoft Access and msi coudn't fine certain components related to something called "ProductNonBootFiles." Those components did not exist on the machine at all.
So I can only assume that as Administrator they were not searched for, and as PowerUser they were.

Thanks for your help.

Justin

[The Dood]

Hi all,

I have a similar problem but not with office. I work in QA for a software house.

I have a a VB written application built in Installshield 7 and installed on a windows 2000 server with SP2 used for citrix connections. I access the app through a citrix client session on a client PC and log in to citrix with a log in as a user that does not have admin rights. I run the VB app and the windows installer appears and says gathering information for a few seconds. It appears again and keeps appearing evertime i go to a new form in the app. For each form it will only appear once....until the user runs the published app again, the whole thing repeats again. This is very annoying if you have 40 users in the same domain log in group who all use the published app and get the same problem. If i move the user to Domain admins and run the app the installer appears the first time and not again. If i change the user back to non admin it does not appear again! I assume that whatever the installer is doing/installing/registering does not have rights to perform its actions as non admin but does as admin. does anyone have any ideas on how to diagnose or even fix?.....

[rmadassery77]

This is due to HKCU keys being installed for each logged on user. If your msi has HKCU keys, it will "repair" everytime a new user is logged on.This is a common msi behavior.

[The Dood]

Thanks Rajiv,

That does shed some light on to where the problem lies. Does this mean that we have to check which keys are used\written by the MSI packaged with our software? Or is there a setting or a registry key in Windows 2000 server with terminal services that can be set or modified for this repair to complete only once and not again the next time the user logs in as if they were in a domain admin group?

Can anyone else help!

[rmadassery77]

Office is an application which configures (repairs) for any user when he first acceses the application. HKCU keys in an msi would at any cost install for a new user other than who installs it. But this should happen only once per user.In Terminal Server there is a techinique called "Shadow Keys" where in the HKCU keys will be shadowed in HKLM and then installed to current users HKCU hive on install.

As of now I dont have any reference for you, if only anybody visiting the forum could help !!