1

We use InstallAware 18. I've noticed some inconsistent behavior.

Installation Context changes without my knowing. If I double click on the MSI I've built I usually can expect a per-User Installation. That's fine for us. HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\MyApp.msi

However, after a few hours of testing the msi in a Powershell script, the MSI ends up doing a per-machine installation HKLM\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall\MyApp.msi

NOTE:
Even if I use msiexec.exe, I run into this issue. I'm not using the ALLUSERS property from the command line, nor do I have the value set in the MSI.

ezG
  • 391
  • 1
  • 17
  • 1
    What do the logs say? [On MSI logging and interpretation](https://stackoverflow.com/a/54458890/129130). And obviously check the property table to verify that ALLUSERS isn't set there anyway. Maybe the tool suddenly added it? – Stein Åsmul Sep 03 '20 at 01:16
  • @SteinÅsmul I'll revisit the logs. I'm still relatively new to this, and that log file is a little confusing to me. – ezG Sep 03 '20 at 05:43
  • 1
    [This annotated MSI log (PDF)](https://web.archive.org/web/20080916030949/http://www.rmacdonald.members.winisp.net/Blog_Docs/Annotated_Windows_Installer_Log.pdf) might help. Also see the whole section called ["Interpreting MSI Log Files" here](https://stackoverflow.com/a/54458890/129130) for more tips. In your case I would search for `ALLUSERS`. – Stein Åsmul Sep 03 '20 at 09:14
  • @SteinÅsmul Again, thank you. I'm pouring through documentation, and what's becoming very obvious is that I don't know enough to ask the right questions and am therefore going down many rabbit holes. – ezG Sep 04 '20 at 04:15

1 Answers1

0

[Credit to: Stein Asmul. The Links he posted gave me better questions to ask and got me on the trail to my eventual answer]

If you don't set the ALLUSERS property to some value yourself, the system will pick whatever it deems best (e.g. Is the install running as an Admin, or a regular user)

Now, I set ALLUSERS to "TRUE" within my MSI script. When I double click on the file, I get a Per-machine install.

NOTE: (/q flag seems to ignore 'ALLUSERS' property)
msiexec.exe /i myapp.msi -- gets a per-machine install.
msiexec.exe /i myapp.msi /qn -- get a per-user install.

After repeated testing, I can say that /q definitely causes MSIEXEC.exe to ignore ALLUERS=TRUE (or change it to FALSE). I'm not sure why. Perhaps this is unique to the InstallAware product; I can't be sure; I'm still learning

ezG
  • 391
  • 1
  • 17