Installer process (setup.exe) spawning infinitely when UAC is off with non-admin user
When installer is run on a machine where UAC is off and the user is not administrator, but a standard restricted user, the installer process (setup.exe) is spawning infinitely.
Are you fully patched? I personally consider the behavior that causes this to be a bug in Microsoft Windows, but pointing fingers doesn't help. If you are fully patched, does the setup.exe get stuck in an infinite loop, or does it wait for you to click something, and thus allow you to click a cancel button?
The OS I am using Win7 but I believe same would happen on a Vista, too.
Michael, as for the patches, I believe you are asking for the Windows patches and update? I cannot guarantee that every patch is applied but I think windows updates are applied.
The setup.exe gets stuck in an infinite loop. Since UAC is off, no UAC propmt nor such message are displayed.
It is weird that it is not happening with all the setup.exe's that I produce. I simply have 3 products and hance 3 installers. 2 of them have same pre-reqs and 1 of them have some separate pre-reqs. I am not sure this could be to do with the pre-reqs that are used, but the 2 of them with the same pre-reqs are presenting the issue while the other not. Anyway, the problematic packages dont even get to install the pre-reqs as they go into the infinite loop.
Any idea on how to debug this? AFAIK, Setup exe doesnt produce any logs (not talking about the MSI logs, but the setup.exe itself). Event viewer doesnt seem to log anything either.
I did some further research, and it looks like our fix for this was included in InstallShield 2008 SP1, InstallShield 2009, and later. But to be clear about it, we used to have an infinite loop that you couldn't interrupt. Now it waits for the user to click Install between each iteration of the loop. Does this match what you are seeing (i.e. it continues to loop each time you click Install), or are you seeing something different?
IOC-000067155 When UAC is disabled on a Windows Vista system and the end user is using a limited user account, an InstallShield prerequisite that requires elevation prompts the end user to click the Install button or the Cancel button. In this case, if the end user clicks the Install button, the same dialog is displayed again, prompting the end user to click the Install button or the Cancel button. Previously in this case, the setup prerequisite dialogs would automatically run in an infinite loop.
First of all, I have disabled the pre-requisite pending window. My exe directly starts installing the pre-reqs without asking user to hit Install or Cancel.
So I am not seeing any visual symptoms mentioned here. But if I look at the process list, I am seeing the setup.exe process spawning on and on. The number of the process number of setup.exe's spawned reaches to hundred and more.
Is there any log that I could generate for the setup.exe launcher?
It sounds like this may be a variant of the problem with which I was familiar. Your setup contains only prerequisites that are configured to be hidden from the list? You can create a /debuglog for setup.exe (but it sounds like this will just confirm what you already know).
Your best bet may be to mark your prerequisites as not needing elevated privileges. If you are only installing one, then it will theoretically issue a single UAC prompt under a normally configured machine, or the redistributable may possibly fail to install properly from this abnormal configuration. The problem with this UAC configuration is that it is impossible to acquire administrative privileges, but I certainly agree that an infinite recursive spawn is not a reasonable failure behavior.
I am facing a similar problem too. I have created an install script msi project in install shield professional 12. As Michael mentioned, the dialog is displayed with Install and cancel buttons. But clicking on cancel does not abort the process, the dialog is displayed infinitely
