InstallAware

I'm having trouble trying to figure out why or where some messages are coming from in the installer log file. I couldn't find good resources for interpreting the output, so if anyone has any good references, I would appreciate it.

In particular, I'm having trouble figuring out why this would be written to the log file:


Some background to the issue:
The user installed version A (64-bit) of the program, and the files were written to C:\Program Files\. The user updated to version B (64-bit) of the program and the files were incorrectly written to C:\Program Files (x86)\ because the wrong TARGETDIR (32-bit program files) was specified during the update. The user then updated to version C (64-bit) of the program using the correct TARGETDIR (64-bit program files), and now whenever the user tries to install the 64-bit version of the application, it always shows the above in the log file and installs the program to C:\Program Files (x86)\ instead.

Another part of the log I'd like to know more about is all the commands starting with:

I'm trying to figure out where it determines what to use for some of the parameters passed, in particular:

From what I can tell, BinaryType=0 means the application is 32-bit and BinaryType=1 means the application is 64-bit, but where is that determined? From some system setting?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Dear Ru2,

All those information are generated by the MSI engine and for what I see, those should be the consequence of your Project script instructions.

- Are you handling correctly the x64 installation mode with your project?

- If you try to install your version C installer, does it use the correct target path location?

- Are you using any command as "load feature selections" and "store feature selections" in your project?

"Load Feature Selections

This command loads feature selections that were previously saved using the Save Feature Selections command. Feature selections indicate the features chosen to be installed by the user during a custom setup.

This command also loads the values of any persistent variables, the pre-defined variables TARGETDIR, STARTMENU and ALLUSERS, and the installation processor architecture."

Regards

- Are you handling correctly the x64 installation mode with your project?
Yes, I believe that the 32/64 configuration is correct. The error above only occurs on one user's system, and it works correctly on other user's systems (pool of about 30 users).

- If you try to install your version C installer, does it use the correct target path location?
Yes, it does at first, it's only during install time that it changes and installs some things to the wrong path (basically everything after this "substitution" line).

- Are you using any command as "load feature selections" and "store feature selections" in your project?
No, these are not used.

I know that these log events are being generated by the Windows Installer, but I'd like to know more information about what it means and why it would happen. Any ideas? Otherwise, if you have any insight on my actual problem, that would be helpful too, but I moreso just want to understand why the events would occur in the log.

Dear Ru2,

Unfortunately, by your replies and without having that specific machine ... I really don't know.

Just a question, if you completely remove your paclage installation from that specific machine, can you check if any temporary files has been left?

Depending on installation type (per user or per machine), on WIN 7 these could be stored under "c:\Program Data" or "C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local".

Regards

How does one go about checking if any temporary files have been left over? The user has cleared any related files from C:\ProgramData (guid folders matching the installation). Is there any other place the installer would reference previous installation files?

Also, any clue on what the log message is indicating? I'm not so much worried about the problem as I am in figuring out what the log is trying to tell me. If you have some good references where I can read further on how to interpret the log, I would really appreciate it.

Dear Ru2,

...Is there any other place the installer would reference previous installation files?

Have you also checked under the local path of the user who installed the package ... "C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local"?

...If you have some good references where I can read further on how to interpret the log, I would really appreciate it.

Try with; http://blogs.technet.com/b/richard_macdonald/archive/2007/04/02/how-to-interpret-windows-installer-logs.aspx

Regards

Thanks, that link has some good info I hadn't come across before, I appreciate it. Also, the AppData folder is clear as well, and in the log, I can see that everything is being cached to ProgramData anyway.