Unable to Update on POSReady 2009 After Install

[invalidptr]

1) Some portion of our customers are running POSReady 2009. This is basically Windows XP SP3.

2) As a general rule, we cannot reboot these systems. Nor is our software (or updates) allowed to reboot the system.

3) We strive to make our system zero configuration and zero touch. A tech should be able to install our software and never have to touch the PC again. This includes software updates which we preform via a command from our server to execute AI's supplied UPDATE.EXE.

4) We place our APP.EXE in the startup folder.

5) At the end of our AI setup. Our APP.EXE is launched.

We have a situation where our installed product cannot be updated on POSReady 2009. UPDATE.EXE just sits forever in the Task Manager. We have pinpointed this issue to be with MSIEXEC.EXE. Using Process Monitor we noticed that our APP.EXE is hanging off of MSIEXEC.EXE. If we manually restart our application it will be hanging off of EXPLORER.EXE and can update just fine.

A) In Windows XP SP3: After our application is launched from SETUP.EXE its parent process is WINLOGON.EXE.

B) In POSReady 2009: After our application is launched from SETUP.EXE its parent process is MSIEXEC.EXE.

C) In Windows XP SP3 or POSReady 2009: After quitting and launching our APP.EXE it is running off of EXPLORER.EXE.

D) In Windows XP SP3 or POSReady 2009: After a reboot our APP.EXE is running off of EXPLORER.EXE.

MSIEXEC v3.1.4001.5512 on XP
MSIEXEC v4.5.6001.22159 on POSReady 2009

[Bogdan]

Hi,

I am not sure what is the problem, it could be that Microsoft uses some different API for Windows Installer that is not available in the standard XP editions.
Unfortunately we do no have access to this particular edition to test it.

If you have one of the latest editions of Advanced Installer you could try a work around like this:
- disable the current mechanism to launch the file at the end of the install
- go to Prerequisites page, here you should see the "Post-install" tree, when you can add an EXE or BAT file that launches a file from a path received as a command line parameter
- the command line parameter you can set in "Setup Files" tab, after you add the post install "prerequisite", under all "Install Command Lines" fields. Just
press '[' on your keyboard and you will see a context menu from where you can select "File", then select your file. Advanced Installer will insert a reference, please place quotes around it in case the final path contains spaces.

This will make our setup.exe to launch your EXE/BAT file at the end with the command line configured, so your EXE/BAT then launches the file received in the command line.

Unfortunately I did not had the time to test this approach so if any problem appear please let me us know.

Best regards,
Bogdan