AdminStudio Repackager - MSI's trying to Repair themselves

[is-support]

Resubmit prior support incident. I thought I had it figured out but doesn't seem to be the case. The msi packages I create are trying to repair themselves upon launching on new user accounts.

I am not trying anything that complicated, I simply want to repackage a few applications (.exe files) and create MSI installations of them. Here is what I have done so far.

I am using a fresh virtual machine with AdminStudio and InstallShield 2009 installed on it. I have all the updates applied. Virtual machine is set to "NonPersistent" so that every time I create a package and turn off the virtual machine it wipes the hard drive back to the point of a fresh installation with updates applied.

For example, I download the latest version of Firefox to package it. I run the installation monitor method. I build the MSI. I open it up in InstallShield to check to make sure it has the ALLUSERS property of =1 and it does. The app works fine to install, but if you delete the MSI file after installation and a new user logs on to the computer, you launch Firefox and it goes and searches for the original MSI installation file. This happens with everything I package. I am doing a per-machine install because ALLUSERS=1. Is there something I am missing? This is very important because we don't want to have to store the MSI files on the C: drive, we want to be able to install them and delete the install files, just as you would with EXE files. Thank you

[Cary_R]

Hi There,

It sounds like your package is installing registry data under HKCU. There's a few options for dealing with this:

1. If the data is user-profile specific it might get created by the first run of Firefox or whatever other app you're repackaging. If this is the case, just remove it from the package.

2. If the data doesn't get created by running the app, then you're probably stuck with dealing with Autorepair. There's clever ways of hiding this, but they all amount to basically silently calling a repair before it can be triggered:

http://www.etlengineering.com/installer/activesetup.txt

3. There might legitimately be a file of some sort that's getting deleted when Firefox upgrades itself. I have seen this with some of the 2.x releases of firefox. I would recommend checking the Application Event log to see if it references a particular component in your built package.

[is-support]

There is data that is user-profile specific, is there any easy way of finding this for different apps?

Also, I know we shouldn't have to be stuck with AutoRepair as I have seen and heard of other people repackaging these same apps I am just fine. Basically silently calling a repair before launch will not solve the problem of deleting the MSI after installation. The whole point of the MSI is to install it and then delete the .msi file afterwords.

I just submitted a verbose log file to Acresso support, hopefully they can give some more input.

Thank you for the response Cary.

[Tony_Toni_Tone]

is-support wrote:
There is data that is user-profile specific, is there any easy way of finding this for different apps?

The data will be under HKCU or c:\Documents and Settings if you missed it take a look at the event viewer application log it will state what component is self repairing - take a look at the component and see if it is needed.

If it needed then a self repair will be required - if no files are required for the repair it will use the cached version in c:\windows\installer.

Is it not possible to keep your MSI packages on a server - so the windows installer can always access the source msi?

Also you can get a firefox msi http://www.frontmotion.com/Firefox

[is-support]

I do think it is Windows Installer trying to repair. I have logged the errors from the event viewer below.

It is possible for us to use server for a location to keep the MSI files (and we will be doing that for local workstations via SCCM), however we are wanting MSI's that are portable as well. We want to be able to throw like 40 MSI packages onto a USB stick and take them places. We do computer support for student's computers here at the University and USB sticks come in handy for installing apps.

Also, I know about the FrontMotion MSI version, I just am having the same problem with everything I package and was using Firefox as an example.

Thanks guys for the help.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Event Type: Warning
Event Source: MsiInstaller
Event Category: None
Event ID: 1004
Date: 5/21/2009
Time: 4:22:54 PM
User: ADMINSTUDIO\testing
Computer: ADMINSTUDIO
Description:
Detection of product '{8B43B8E9-A604-40D6-967A-E44A7170FB3A}', feature 'KLiteCodecPackNewFeature', component '{F28B4373-23A1-4D88-97C8-ED20EF5B4323}' failed. The resource 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Shortcuts\{4B68BD45-6484-4B01-B68C-748FA3D5C93A}' does not exist.

For more information, see Help and Support Center at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Event Type: Warning
Event Source: MsiInstaller
Event Category: None
Event ID: 1001
Date: 5/21/2009
Time: 4:22:54 PM
User: ADMINSTUDIO\testing
Computer: ADMINSTUDIO
Description:
Detection of product '{8B43B8E9-A604-40D6-967A-E44A7170FB3A}', feature 'KLiteCodecPackNewFeature' failed during request for component '{9F8A372A-B435-41CA-B683-5E9CD703A4CE}'