Vista UAC Elevation - Whats its purpose?

[blandry]

On the Project Options dialogue in IA 7 R2, within the Project->Summary group - there is a setting at the bottom of the dialogue that says "Vista UAC Elevation", with three selections; Always Elevate, Elevate Admin Only, and Never Elevate. Unfortunately, this setting is poorly documented in the help file, appearing only in the "Whats New" section and stating; "It is now possible to manually force UAC Elevation on Vista..."

Our problem is that we have a Silent Install we want to use and of course, it DOES NOT run silent on Vista or Windows 7 because the UAC prompt appears. I expected that when I set the "Vista UAC Elevation" to "Never elevate" I might avoid those UAC prompts, but this was not the case, and in fact, when set at "never elevate" the entire Silent Install will NOT run silent at all.

So... Two questions... Can this setting be used to make a Silent Install actually silent on Vista/Win7? And if not, what is the purpose of this setting?

Thanks for any help you can offer...

[MichaelNesmith]

You should read up on some Microsoft documentation on what UAC is, and what it does. This is a huge subject and has broad implications. You will not be able to understand InstallAware's implementation successfully until you are up to speed on what UAC is itself.

That said, at Never Elevate, silent should be silent - although you have to make sure your setup is properly authored so it does not need admin rights to install anywhere. Please research UAC and post back here after you have found out more about the issue.

[blandry]

Thanks Mike... We understand how to properly author an install for UAC and Silent Install but there is an InstallAware Catch-22 in that process...

Because InstallAware (at least Vers 7 R2) DOES NOT write to the DisplayVersion value in the Registry, thus meaning that Microsoft will not certify our application (for Vista / Win7) - we have to manually do that registry write, and thus we then cannot get the asInvoker rights that would make this undocumented setting in IA work as you state.

Funny too because when we talked to Microsoft about this I am sure you can guess what they said... "InstallAware needs to fix that..." although I think maybe you guys have and we are on just too old a version to have it.

Hence, what we are/were looking for is some good old standard, should-be-provided documentation for a control on a form in InstallAware's product. E.g., Nevermind our understanding of UAC, that does not explain InstallAware deciding a control needs no explanation other than a marketing blurb - especially when the effects of the control seem to operate backwards.

That is, when set on "Never Elevate", our ENTIRE install is verbose - nothing Silent about it. But if we switch to "Elevate Administrators Only", its runs MOSTLY Silent until the UAC prompts start firing...

What the heck - for us here in the horrible caves of the Development Department, constantly whipped by our Masters, we continue to tell them we NEED an InstallAware upgrade...

But with no ill-will intended at you in our snarkiness back at you - you guys need read up on Microsoft's Style Guide. You dont put a control on a form and then offer nothing in the help file about what it does, other than marketing.

As for us? Just more ammo that we need a darn IA upgrade! I am sure corporate will get that to us by the time Windows 43 is released...

[Steve]

So here I am having upgraded to and installed V11 of InstallAware and sadly, thus far it does not appear that the documentation has improved at all.

The original poster of this thread was on version 7 of IA and complained that the IA help provides no information at all with regard to elevation, and in V11 still nothing has been updated in the help file. I know that sometimes things get missed, but come one guys!

There is absolutely nothing in the IA help file that explains any details at all about what 'User Account Control -Request Elevation Level' does.

The IA help documentation NEEDS TO BE HELPFUL, please, please, please provide an explanation of each of the three options and an example of when it is recommended that each be used:
- Always Elevate (requireAdministrator)
- Elevate Administrators Only (highestAvailable)
- Never Elevate (asInvoker)

You know, something simple like:
"The option, 'Elevate Administrators Only (highestAvailable)' will check that the moon is in alignment with Venus and if so, will do xyz." This is the default selection and it is recommended that you use this default in situations where blah, blah, blah..."

(My example is not meant to be mocking... I would provide a real explanation for you if only I understood what this feature did...)

Thanks very much,
-Steve

[giaviv]

Dear InstallAware users,

Here is a clarification of the UAC elevation feature in InstallAware:
http://www.installaware.com/forum/viewt ... f=2&t=6787