Verifying Installation Directory is FAT

Question

I'd like to know how I can set up a way to verify that the installation directory is FAT/FAT32/exFAT/any USB without USN Journal.

I assume it's something here:

I couldn't find any documentation on what I'm trying to do. I'd try to add some support in my program directly, but by doing the check, it may cause issues.

Did the battle with the file system go well? NTFS seems to be the file system where everything is possible and nothing is (all that) easy. — Stein Åsmul, Aug 02 '18 at 20:43

Stein Åsmul · Answer 1 · 2018-08-12T19:16:35.170

First things first: Visual Studio Setup Projects are quite limited, you might be better off looking for a more capable deployment tool / framework: Application setup.

NTFS Only: That sounds pretty exotic. It isn't even possible to install Windows on anything but NTFS nowadays? From superuser.com: "Windows Vista and higher will not install on a FAT32 partition and can only be installed on an NTFS partition. This is probably due to the use of symlinks (which are not supported in FAT32)." I don't have an MSDN link for you to verify, but I am pretty sure the above is correct.

Built-In MSI Feature: It is possible that there is a built in property in MSI that will be set to the system drive's file system. I am not familiar with any such properties.

Custom Action: If you are on Windows XP, I suppose you need a custom action and then a call to either WMI or directly via the Win32 API to determine what the file system really is.

Win32: An answer with some sample mock-up code for a Win32 check of file system: Determine what filesystem a partition is of. An inline version tested with VS2017, C++ console project:

#include "stdafx.h"
#include "Windows.h"
#define WIN32_LEAN_AND_MEAN // Exclude rarely used stuff from Windows.h (Crypto stuff?)

int main()
{
    WCHAR FSType[512];

    if (GetVolumeInformationW(L"C:\\", NULL, 0, NULL, NULL, NULL, FSType, ARRAYSIZE(FSType))) {
        MessageBox(NULL, FSType, L"File System:", MB_OK); 
        // TEXT("File System:") instead of L"File System:" if need be?
    }
}

WMI: You should be able to get the information from Win32_LogicalDisk:

SELECT FileSystem FROM Win32_LogicalDisk WHERE DeviceID='C:'

FileSystemObject: I forgot that the COM scripting runtime can be used:

Set fso = CreateObject("Scripting.FileSystemObject")
Set drive = fso.GetDrive(fso.GetDriveName("C:"))
MsgBox drive.FileSystem

I'm trying to prevent the installation from proceeding if the selected drive is NTFS. I don't support WinXP. — Cryptoman, Aug 01 '18 at 23:58
@Cryptoman: You've got it backward. Not proceeding on NTFS will prevent you from using anything *except* Windows XP, because Vista and on **only use** NTFS. — Ken White, Aug 02 '18 at 00:07
Seeing as NTFS is required for the system drive from Vista onwards, do you then install to a secondary partition? Or do you install to a USB drive? In the latter case I would think you don't really need an installer? Maybe just a zip? Or a custom EXE that writes the USB key specifically. — Stein Åsmul, Aug 02 '18 at 00:07
@KenWhite I understand now. Either way, don't worry: my program will work on anything with USN Journal disabled. — Cryptoman, Aug 02 '18 at 00:09
@SteinÅsmul Just install on a USB. We do need an installer. — Cryptoman, Aug 02 '18 at 00:10
[**I would check the links this guy provides**](https://stackoverflow.com/a/27593415/129130). Maybe search [**github.com**](http://www.github.com) for an example using these calls. — Stein Åsmul, Aug 02 '18 at 00:12

Verifying Installation Directory is FAT

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