ugus
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Jun 26, 2009 8:34 am

Per machine installation + part inst. user level

Fri Jun 26, 2009 9:08 am

How do I best solve this scenario?

The main installation is made per machine but some of the settings must be set per user.
I have solved it by doing a per-machine installation and installed an exe-file which runs by calling RunOnce key in HKCU when the user logs on.

Is there a better, more MSI-way of doing this?

Thnx in advance Ulrik

Cosmin
Posts: 5797
Joined: Tue Jul 10, 2007 6:39 pm
Contact:  Website

Re: Per machine installation + part inst. user level

Fri Jun 26, 2009 9:15 am

Hi,

There are a lot of approaches for this and none of them is supported by Windows Installer directly. The approaches also depend on what you need to do. If your method works, you can use it.

Regards,
Cosmin
Cosmin Pirvu - Advanced Installer Team
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ugus
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Jun 26, 2009 8:34 am

Re: Per machine installation + part inst. user level

Fri Jun 26, 2009 9:21 am

cosmin wrote:Hi,

There are a lot of approaches for this and none of them is supported by Windows Installer directly. The approaches also depend on what you need to do. If your method works, you can use it.

Regards,
Cosmin
Thanks,

Do you know other approaches that can be used? All needed for this shall be included in the original MSI-package (no external vbs scripts etc)?

EDIT:

The reason for asking this is that my approach works most of the time but on some it-configs it fails. I also want to have something that runs directly when the user logs in (not when the user is launching an installed application.)
Last edited by ugus on Fri Jun 26, 2009 9:31 am, edited 1 time in total.

Cosmin
Posts: 5797
Joined: Tue Jul 10, 2007 6:39 pm
Contact:  Website

Re: Per machine installation + part inst. user level

Fri Jun 26, 2009 9:29 am

Hi,

Can you please give me more details about what you need to do? How do you want to store the settings per-user? Like I mentioned in my previous post, the approaches depend on what you need to do.

Regards,
Cosmin
Cosmin Pirvu - Advanced Installer Team
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ugus
Posts: 3
Joined: Fri Jun 26, 2009 8:34 am

Re: Per machine installation + part inst. user level

Fri Jun 26, 2009 9:34 am

cosmin wrote:Hi,

Can you please give me more details about what you need to do? How do you want to store the settings per-user? Like I mentioned in my previous post, the approaches depend on what you need to do.

Regards,
Cosmin
I want to do a filecopy to users profile (charts in Office 2007 which should be copied to %appdata%\Microsoft\Templates\Charts) also I want to set some reg-settings for Office.

/Ulrik

Cosmin
Posts: 5797
Joined: Tue Jul 10, 2007 6:39 pm
Contact:  Website

Re: Per machine installation + part inst. user level

Fri Jun 26, 2009 9:47 am

Hi,

Possible solutions for what you need would be:
- use the self healing feature to make sure that the settings are created when the application is started (this requires the application to be launched through an Advertised shortcut)
- handle this from within your application (when the application starts you can check the settings and perform the actions you want)
- use a custom EXE as a scheduled task (the EXE can check the settings and perform the actions you want)

I'm afraid Windows Installer doesn't offer direct support for what you need.

Regards,
Cosmin
Cosmin Pirvu - Advanced Installer Team
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