Single EXE:“Repair” option causes red elevation prompt without Yes button

[wollka]

Hi,

When I build Single EXE (LZMA or CAB) with all setup files inside and selected “Do not delete extracted files” option, the “Repair” feature of the installed application causes red UAC elevation prompt without Yes button under Windows 10. The same happens while repair is initiated with advertised shortcut (missing installed file).

All files are dual signed.
Does not happen when files or .cab files are located next to setup.exe. It repairs itself without elevation prompt at all.

[mihai.petcu]

Hello,

This is nothing I ever encountered before and it doesn't seem to be related to the installer. Those options simply require elevated privileges to execute properly.

Are you sure you have administrative privileges on that account? Also, does this persist on several (clean) machines?

All the best,
Mihai

[wollka]

Well, but it IS related to the installer. At least, because this does not happen with single.exe created with VisualStudio’s free InstallShield2015 LE and running on the same machine.

Yes, I do have admin privileges.

It persists on another machine (vm with clean Windows10 install) - new screenshot attached.

You can try to reproduce it if you want:

1) New Professional project with default options.
2) Add some .exe file
3) Add advertised desktop shortcut to it.
4) In Builds settings select “Single EXE setup (resources inside)” and “Do not delete extracted MSI and CAB files” options.
5) Build setup.
6) Install app.
7) Manually delete installed .exe file from program files.
8) Try to open installed app from advertised desktop shortcut.

[mihai.petcu]

Hello,

We managed to replicate this as well and to be more exact it seems the behavior is triggered by a repair operation when the "Do not delete extracted MSI and CAB files" option is enabled, only on Windows 10. Is the IS2015 LE edition installer configured identically? If so, can you please send it to us?

All the "Do not delete extracted MSI and CAB files" option does is to request elevated privileges to execute and from that point forward, UAC takes over. The dialog should offer a YES or CONTINUE button with the prompted question, otherwise it's an obvious bug in Windows 10.

The issue is debated in the following thread and from their answer, Microsoft are clueless (FYI: a patch or a self-healing shortcut basically consists of a repair operation as well):
UAC prompt: Do you want to allow this app to update software on your device?, but no way to say Yes or OK, only Close.

All the best,
Mihai

[wollka]

Yes, IS LE keeps cached .msi under [LocalAppDataFolder]Downloaded Installations.
As requested, I’ve sent you one to support e-mail.

[wollka]

Not only Repair option. “Modify” also fails to install missing features. Try installing software without some of its features and then go to Add/remove programs, find your software, run Change>Modify and select this skipped feature and you’ll see the same red dialog.

[wollka]

Looks like there is a problem with your bootstrapper. I've built setup with setup.exe, separate .msi and separate .cab files. Then added all of them to RAR SFX. Now when SFX it extracts files to some folder and runs setup and does not delete extracted files, repair works without any issues.
So I guess you modify extracted from bootstrapper files in some way after extraction.

[mihai.petcu]

Thank you for the insights, our team are investigating the issue as we speak and we'll post here after we get something conclusive.

All the best,
Mihai

[Zsolt Kollarits]

Hi Mihai,

Do you have any news on this? We´re facing the exact same problem and our customers started to complain that they are not able to add/remove features due to the UAC dialog with red header. We understand that having a single Close button on that dialog is an issue which belongs to Microsoft, they should give us the chance of bypassing that dialog. Could you offer something from your side that helps us getting rid of the red dialog?

Thanks,
Zsolt

[Zsolt Kollarits]

Hi Mihai,

One more comment on this:
If we use the "EXE setup with resources next to it" and install the product in this way, then the red UAC dialog does not come later on when trying to add a feature to our product on Programs and Features dialog.

If we use the "Single EXE setup" and install the product in this way, the red UAC dialog will come.

It´d be good to understand the difference and the possible workarounds.

Best regards,
Zsolt

[mihai.petcu]

Dear Zsolt,

Thank you very much for your feedback. After discussing with development it seems this improvement is not that simple and requires considerable more investigation time, not to mention insight from Microsoft.

Unfortunately our resources are limited and we have a lot on our plate after the recent shift to UWP. So far there are only a couple of clients(including yourself) having requested this solution and I'm afraid priority to allocate time for this improvement is very low. Nonetheless, your vote matters and we'll keep this thread updated.

Regards,
Mihai

[Zsolt Kollarits]

Hi Mihai,

Many of our customers are really disappointed due to the fact that they´re not able to modify the feature list of our product from Programs and Features due to the UAC dialog with red header coming from Microsoft. Our product has really wide range of features, most of the customers are using different sets of features. From our point of view, it´s critical if an average user installs something on his PC, but he does not have full control over the installed product since he can use the standard/default feature list of the product only, but not able to add and use more advanced features later on, although he paid for it.

We´d really try to figure out something on our side if we could do anything. But for me it seems only you or Microsoft can do anything against the red UAC window.

Please advise us something how to help our customers.

Best regards,
Zsolt

[Daniel]

Hello Zsolt,

We are very sorry for this and I completely understand your complaints, but I'm afraid we were not able to find out any resolution to this behavior by now nor I can give you any ETA for a resolution.

Thank you for your understanding.

All the best,
Daniel

[Daniel]

Hello Zsolt,

We further investigated this and we found that starting with Windows 10 Creators Update version the issue no more occurs. Most likely this was a Windows 10 UAC prompt issue which Microsoft fixed in their last update. Therefore you will have to make sure that on Windows 10 machines your setups run on systems using the last Windows 10 update (Creators Update) in order to prevent this issue.

Let me know if this helped.

All the best,
Daniel

[Zsolt Kollarits]

Hi Daniel,

On Windows 10 the issue is gone but it still exists on Window 2016 machines.

Best regards,
Zsolt