install on windows 7 troubleshoot compatibility PCA - "This program might not have installed correctly”

Question

Well, I'm using Visual C++ 2010 Express and ResEdit for my midi sequencer's SETUP app.

Win32 API, no MFC, some custom window and control classes and such.

Now that I got Windows 7, my dang SETUP program is broke.

Windows gives me the ole "Did this app install correctly??" thingy. Which implies that SOMEthing is wrong with my installer.

I'm tryin' to figure out what that might be...

I've seen these 2 SO threads:

"This program might not have installed correctly"

"This program might not have installed correctly" message in Windows 7 RC

Which have lead me to these places:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd371711(VS.85).aspx

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb756937.aspx

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa905330.aspx#wvduac_topic3

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/cjacks/archive/2009/06/18/pca-changes-for-windows-7-how-to-tell-us-you-are-not-an-installer-take-2-because-we-changed-the-rules-on-you.aspx

http://community.flexerasoftware.com/archive/index.php?t-189007.html

Only registry entries I use are the standard uninstall spot and associations for filetypes.

SETUP writes a dat.cfg file in program files\pianocheater dir that points to where all the app's data is. (just a text file with a path in it) (And an etc.cfg for a temp dir within that data dir to use.)

So I'm only READING from programfiles\pianocheater post SETUP.

Can anybody think of why Windows wouldn't like the install? Source code is at http://shazware.com/_etc/SETUP_PIANOCHEATER.cpp It uses my library of window, control classes similar in spirit to mfc. I could send useful parts of it, too.

It's not toooo bad for a setup app. Should be pretty ledgible for a win32 guy/gal.

I could uuuuuse some he'p...:/

Oh yeah, I should point out that Go() is the entry point instead of main(). The DBG()s just do OutputDebugString() and seem to all run just fine. TStr is just a big char[MAX_PATH] (and I don't do unicode)

And the trick PROBably is that I'm on win7 64 bit, but this is a 32 bit app. I'm pretty sure I'm using the registry correctly for assoc's and uninstall spot, though.

So is THE thing I SHOULD do the manifest xml thing? Or is there a more correct way to do things?

thanks much,

...Steve

Answer 1

First off, check whether that message is a false positive or not. The message you're seeing is designed to use heuristics (which can be wrong!) to determine if an installer failed due to Windows Vista/7 compatibility issues. If your installer is in fact compatible with Windows 7/Vista, then all you need to do is add a manifest declaring itself compatible. You'll also want to add a requestedExecutionLevel entry to your manifest as well to request elevation.

If your installer is in fact failing, of course, then you ought to fix that first.

Finally, if the error is showing up because a launcher executable exits early or something like that, consider suppressing installer detection by adding the appropriate manifest entries to the launcher as well (you may be able to use a requestedExecutionLevel of asInvoker if the launcher doesn't need administrative access; the presence of a requestedExecutionLevel manifest entry should suppress installer detection). Note that you should make sure you use ShellExecute to invoke your main installer process, not CreateProcess, or UAC may not elevate the child process.