Uninstall shortcut no longer works nicely

[ken rentz]

Now that InstallAware no longer elevates permissions on Vista, the uninstall shortcut that it creates no longer works in a user friendly fashion. If the installer does not check for Admin rights, you get an error message part way through the uninstall. If you do check for admin rights, the uninstall fials immediately with a setup error. Requiring the user to right click on a start menu item in order to run as an administrator is not all that intuitive, and will certainly result in a bunch of calls to our tech support line.

Strangely enough, Running the same thing through Add/Remove programs works as expected.

[MichaelNesmith]

Where do you get the notion it no longer elevates on Vista?

[ken rentz]

I just installed our program on vista using an installer created with IA 6.4. It created an uninstall shortcut using:

Code: Select all

 Create Shortcut $SHORTCUTFOLDER$\\Uninstall Program to $UNINSTALLLINK$

If I attempt to use this shortcut I get the error message:

Code: Select all

This product requires at least Administrator Priviledges.

Setup cannot continue.

In a perfect world, I would expect the UAC dialog to come up somewhere so that the program could continue to uninstall.

PS: I just noticed the spelling mistake (Priviledges/Privileges), but I don't know if this was your boilerplate code or my bad spelling

[MichaelNesmith]

Priviledges is our mistake, it will be fixed in the next update.

About your issue, it appears this is what you did:

1) Installed setup under an admin account,
2) Switched to an ordinary user account,
3) Tried to uninstall.

That will not work, and that is intentional, by the design of your own particular software installation which requires admin rights. So I am sure you have a legitimate reason for your test case, but it appears a bit contrived under analysis, as you clearly had admin rights when installing, as your setup script also checks for those rights.

InstallAware always runs setups using highest available privileges. If you are running with an admin account, this means InstallAware will display the UAC dialog and elevate. If you are running with an ordinary user account, the highest available privileges are below admin, so elevation will not occur. If an admin is available, you can always run-as the setup program to forcibly elevate. In the real world, none of this should be an issue for you.

[ken rentz]

But won't the same behavior exist if the user installs via the "run as administrator" option? If this is the case, then Installaware is creating a shortcut under the program's start menu that they most likely will not be able to use.

[MichaelNesmith]

If an admin was available for the original installation, then the assumption that an admin is available for the subsequent maintenance or uninstallation makes sense.

[ken rentz]

Since Vista very strongly recommends that you do not operate under an administrator level account, very few users will be able to use this shortcut without right clicking and doing the "run as administrator" trick. Since our customer base tends towards the non-technically inclined, I don't know how many of them are aware that you can right click on a shortcut under the install tab. This makes the inclusion of the uninstall shortcut a less then useful feature, as was reported as such by our SW test group almost immediately.

It also introduces an inconsistence in the user experience, since this particular shortcut no longer operates the same as the one under the add/remove dialog in the control panel. That one prompts for an admin account before continuing, rather than force the user to log in to another account to accomplish this task.

[MichaelNesmith]

You can author your setup such that it does not require any admin privileges at install time (as long as your application can play along with it, which I understand is the case here). This way any user can run setup without admin rights and can install, uninstall normally.