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I am generating an install project in Visual Studio 2010 for a C# addin to be used with Microsoft Excel. My addin uses an SQLite database, and this database needs to have write permissions for the user working with the addin.

The problem is that I also need to write to the registry in HKLM and the Program Files directory. To do this, the installer must run with elevated permissions, which is not a problem, but when I do so, the database is set to require admin rights to write, which is an issue, despite being played in the CommonAppData folder which does not require admin rights.

Is it possible to set the database to not require admin rights in the install project? I have at my disposal to work with: Visual studio install projects, Installshield 2008 and Installshield 2012.

I found an almost identical question to mine posted here: Visual Studio installer project - setting file permission

The msdn link, however, is dead and the other link only suggests putting the files in a location that does not require elevated permissions.

(Note: I have, for the purposes of testing, simply removed the portion of the files that need to be put in program files, and written to HKCU so that I can get around this issue temporarily; however this is not going to be suitable for deployment as this is going to be added to a much larger project that needs to have these issues resolved.)

Community
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Thomas Robinson
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1 Answers1

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CommonAppData folder is a per-machine location, so it requires Administrator privileges. Any folder that can be accessed by multiple user accounts requires elevation for writing.

AppDataFolder is the one which doesn't require Administrator privileges, but its content is only for the current user account.

You can try setting permissions for your custom folder in CommonAppData. Perhaps this article will help: http://setupanddeployment.com/installation-environment/set-permissions-installation-folder/

Cosmin
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  • Thank you. In an oversight on my part I was looking at the wrong user group's permissions to the file leading me to think normal users could write to the database when they could not. – Thomas Robinson Apr 17 '12 at 19:46