Hidden UAC prompt makes it seem like installer has hung

[jsmith]

When installing our application using the .msi generated by the Group Policy Wizard on Windows 7 with default UAC settings, two UAC warnings are generated. The first appears shortly after double clicking the MSI. The screen is dimmed and the UAC dialog is placed front and center. So far so good, except that next to program name it says something like, "a1e38.msi". This string varies for every build of our installer. Click Yes on this dialog, and then moments later the installation appears to hang.

The progress bar in the small window that says "Please wait while Windows configures [product name]" gets to about 25%, then it just sits there. An astute user might then notice that there is a flashing item with a blue & yellow shield on the task bar. (If he has his task bar set to auto-hide, he likely won't notice this.) Click on this flashing task bar item and only then does the screen dim and another UAC warning dialog appear. This one has our actual product name listed for he program name.

I think that the 2nd UAC prompt is appearing as a background elevation possibly because the "please wait while windows configures" window has a NULL parent hwnd. This link includes a description from MS support about how UAC decides if it will show the warning dialog front and center or if it will place it in the background:

http://social.answers.microsoft.com/For ... 1ed5ea74b4


My question: Is there anything we I can to be sure the UAC prompts during installation of the GP-generated MSI appear front and center? If getting this to happen will require a change to InstallAware, itself, when might such a change be implemented?

Thanks.

[mills]

Try this:

Under the design tab, go to the Summary and UAC view under Application Information.

For Requested Elevation Level, choose Never Elevate.

Rebuild, regenerate the single MSI and test.

[jsmith]

Thanks for the suggestion, Andy. Setting Requested Elevation Level to Never Elevate does eliminate the problematic second UAC prompt. (The first prompt remains, though.)

However, this is not a viable solution for us as we require UAC elevation to install our product. WIth it set the way you suggested, the installation fails with "You do not have sufficient privileges to complete this installation for all users of this machine. Log in as administrator and then retry this installation." We require elevation as we need to do things such as install for all users, write to HKLM, install a service, etc.

Is there a way to keep the default Requested Elevation Level, but have the UAC dialog appear in the foreground? Bear in mind that this hidden-UAC-dialog problem only affects installations using the GP-generated MSI and not when installing the standalone EXE installer directly, even though the problematic UAC dialog is being triggered by the same EXE installer after it has been unpacked from within the GP MSI. If I install using the EXE, the screen dims immediately and the UAC dialog appears front and center.

[mills]

I have notified our developers of this. I think this is something we should be able to control. Will let you know.

[jsmith]

Andy, have you heard anything from development about this? Thanks!

[mills]

I reminded developers about this and they aren't sure off hand whether this is something we have control over or not, but they will check into it.

The general consensus however, is that you should avoid using the group policy wizard unless you are planning to deploy your software through Active Directory Group Policies (since they only accept .msi files for this feature).

Since you mentioned users might not notice the UAC prompt, it doesn't sound like you're deploying this through Active Directory and you would therefore be encouraged to use a single-file compressed install.

[jsmith]

Thanks for looking in to it, Andy. Please keep me updated via this thread with what they find out about whether or not it can be controlled.

Regarding using the GP-generated MSI for general installations, this has been discussed and debated on this forum a good deal. The following has been in the InstallAware documentation since IA7: "a single MSI file can be made available for use by both end-users and in corporate deployment scenarios using the Group Policy Wizard." It was also discussed in this thread. That it keeps coming back to "you shouldn't use the GP MSI for manual installs" suggests that there is a disconnect between what is being published in the docs and marketing materials and how the developers and support folks feel the software should really be used.

[mills]

Note taken.

I've added this to my documentation review list and will verify how the GP-generated MSIs should be actually be treated and update our documentation accordingly.

[rosstrusler]

This is my first production day with my MSI in the wild, and I had the same problem. I brought it up a few months ago on these forums, but haven't heard anything since. It's ridiculous that a Windows Installer tool doesn't produce MSI files that are optimal for all kinds of scenarios.

One issue that was raised in this thread but has not been dealt with is that the first UAC prompt lists some random MSI file name (the inner MSI, I suppose), and users immediately squawked about this because it wasn't the same as the actual MSI file.

This needs to be fixed.