Category: Windows Installer, Application Compatibility and Deployments

Guides on Microsoft Windows Installers, Application Packaging, FAQs, Troubleshooting Tips, Command line parameters, Application Compatibility and Operating System Image Migrations.

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How-to Microsoft Windows Installer, Application Compatibility and Deployments

How to Troubleshoot an error using Windows Installer Logs

When you need to troubleshoot a failing install, it is often useful to use the policy hive rather than the command line to catch things like repairs and multi-package installs. The Windows Installer Log comes in very handy in this case. The log can be generated 2 ways (Other than the usual Msiexec <misname> /l*v c:\testlog.log).

1. Registry Key
Start Registry Editor (Regedt32.exe), and then create the following path and keys in the registry:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Installer

Create keys:
Logging : voicewarmupx
Debug”=dword:00000007

The letters in the value field are the options that are available to use with Windows Installer logging. You can use the options in any order. Each option turns on a specific logging mode. The function of each option is as follows:

v – Verbose output
o – Out-of-disk-space messages
i – Status messages
c – Initial UI parameters
e – All error messages
w – Non-fatal warnings
a – Start up of actions
r – Action-specific records
m – Out-of-memory or fatal exit information
u – User requests
p – Terminal properties
x – Extra debugging information.
+ – Append to existing file
! – Flush each line to the log

* – Wildcard, to log all information except for the v option. To include the v option, specify *v.

It is recommended that you use this service only for troubleshooting. Leaving the service turned on creates a new Msi*.log file every time you use the Add/Remove Programs tool in Control Panel. This activity adversely affects system performance and disk space.

2. Modifying Group Policy
You can use Group Policy to enable logging by modifying the appropriate organizational unit (OU) or Active Directory Group Policy:
Click Start, and then click Run.

In the Open box, type gpedit.msc to start the Group Policy Editor.
Expand Computer Configuration, expand Administrative Templates, expand Windows Components, and then click Windows Installer.
Double-click Logging, and then click Enabled.
In the Logging box, specify the options for what you want to log.
After the installation\UnInstallation of the package check in %temp% for log files starting with MSI (eg.MSI8758d.LOG).

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How-to Windows Installer, Application Compatibility and Deployments

Troubleshoot MSI Installation Issues and Functional Errors

If the application does not work after the install, there could be several possible reasons for this. I’ve tried to outline a few of the troubleshooting steps I take when I run into these types of errors. Read on to learn more. 

The application does not work in user context ie., locked-down environment. 
  • To test this, install the package and run the application under a local administrator account for the workstation.
  • If the application works under this account but not under a normal user account, then the following problems might be present.
  • Unable to write to drives/folders such as R:, C:\Program Files, C:\Windows, etc. which are read-only for normal users. If this is suspected then make the drives read/write for the user to test this. Check whether R:\ and other shared directories are mapped properly before installation.
  • Unable to write to registry keys. With the exception of HKCU and HKLM\SOFTWARE, all other hives are read-only for normal users. If this is suspected then make the hive read/write for the user to test this (use REGEDT32.EXE in W2000 and regedit in XP and Vista).
    In either case if such problems are encountered then the resolution of the problem should be to give the read/write access required for folders on the workstation or hives in the registry.

The application does not work because of missing component!

  • To test this, run the source or native install on a clean machine, and run the application.
    Note that this test can also be done, after the initial application capture. If it does not work, then it is reasonable to assume that the application install is missing some components for it to work or the application will never work on this environment.
  • If it seems as if a component is missing then it can be added.

Not everything has been captured.

  • To test this, install the source, compile the captured .wsi or .wse file and execute the resulting .msi or .exe on the machine, and run the application. If it works then this indicates that all was captured but perhaps too much was removed whilst creating the package or wrong versions of components were used from the originals.
  • In either case a reasonable next step is to perform a “gap capture” on the workstation on which the package has been installed and tested.
    To do this, run WfWI or WI on this workstation and perform a capture of the original native install on top of the Packages install. This will give a “gap capture” indicating the differences, or what has been left out.
    Look at the files and registry entries in the resulting .wsi or .wse.

This post outlined some actions to be taken in the event of a completed package not working when installed. Further it also provided some details of the most common problems and actions.

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Best Practices How-to Microsoft Windows Installer, Application Compatibility and Deployments

MSI Packaging Guidelines and Best Practices for Windows 7 / Vista

Here are few points which would prove handy while re-packaging an application for Vista / Windows 7.

1. If you must make a change on the system via a custom action, ensure that the custom action is deferred and the msidbCustomActionTypeNoImpersonate bit is set. This will ensure that the custom action inherits elevated privileges from the installed

2. Place all your custom actions in the Execute Sequence to ensure that they are invoked during silent mode and use appropriate conditions on the custom actions to only run when intended

3. Test your application for a locked down user. If necessary, give the user permissions to access folders and registry keys that the application tries to write to via the Locked Permissions table. Do not open higher level folders such as C:\Program Files, C:\Windows or C:\Windows\System32 for locked down users. Instead, set permissions on the exact sub-directory that the application needs access to:

4. AdminUser property commonly used to check for admin rights will not work in UAC. Microsoft has decided to set this to TRUE by default for Application Compatibility reasons. Use MSIUSEREALADMINDETECTION property instead.

5. Add installation logic that was not captured by SetupCapture. Example: Launch conditions that check for system requirements.

6. Turn off Virtualization feature. This will ensure that, duplicate files and registries are not created. This mainly happens to the applications which need a launch. The keys which are virtualized can be removed from the package as well.

7. Add support for Vista-specific features 🙁 This can be found in the “Windows Installer Options” dialog of Installation expert in WPS 7.0)

a. Disable the User Account Control (UAC) prompting for standard user installations.

b. Set options for Restart Manager.

8. Set Windows Installer logging options to provide verbose output. The installation log can provide valuable information about why an installation fails.

9. Remove 16-bit features from packages that will run on the 64-bit version of Windows Vista, if they are not part of the application’s primary functionality.

10. Remove all WRP components from the MSI package. If the installation installs a file that would otherwise be installed to an area that is protected by Windows Resource Protection (WRP), you can do one of the following:

a. Delete it from the installation and test the application with the version that is on the destination computer. However, if you do this, your application can fail if the protected file is updated or changed in the future.

b. Isolate the protected file so it is installed to a different location.

11. Fix installation-related errors that you find while performing installation and functionality tests.

12. Make other changes that are not related to Vista but are required as Customers standards.

13. Resolve CA’s which involved Nested Installation. This will throw an error while deployment.

14. Impersonation should not be used when running setups on Windows Vista. Edit the custom action and change its In-Script Options property to Deferred Execution – System Context. Test to verify that the custom action runs in this context.

15. Edit the custom action to add a description. The Windows Installer Editor documentation contains information you can use to document Wise custom actions

16. Any property beginning with MSI cannot be used. Hence avoid using the same.

17. Components cannot have a dummy GUID; it’s a best practice to generate one.

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Best Practices How-to Microsoft Windows Installer, Application Compatibility and Deployments

Best Practices for Windows Installer MSI Custom Actions

The Windows Installer has many built-in actions for the installation of applications. However, when a packager of an installation package finds it necessary to write a custom action. There are some best practices which have to be followed for optimal execution.

  • Custom actions that use sensitive information should not write this information into the log.
  • Custom Actions must not attempt to set a System Restore entry point from within a custom action.
  • Return error messages from custom actions and write them to the log to facilitate troubleshooting custom actions.
  • Do not change the system state from an immediate custom action. Custom actions that change the system directly or call another system service must be deferred to the time when the installation script is executed.
  • Every deferred execution custom action that changes the system state must be preceded by a rollback custom action to undo the system state change on an installation rollback.
  • Custom actions that perform complex installation operations should be an executable file or dynamic-link library. Limit the use of custom actions based on scripts to simple installation operations.
  • Make the details of what your custom action does to the system easily discoverable to administrators. Put the details of registry entries and files used by your custom action into a custom table and have the custom action read from this table.
  • A custom actions should not display a dialog box. Custom actions requiring a user interface can use the MSIPocessMessage function instead
  • Custom actions must not use any of the MSI functions like,
    MSIApplyPatch
    MsiEnableLog
    MSIReinstallfeature
    MSIVerifyLog etc…
  • If the installation must be capable of running on a Terminal Server, test that all your custom actions are capable of running on a Terminal Server.
  • To have a custom action run when a particular patch is uninstalled the custom action must either be present in the original application or be in a patch for the product that is always applied.
  • Custom actions should not use the UI level as a condition for sending error messages to the installer because this can interfere with logging and external messages.
  • Use conditional statements to ensure that your package correctly runs custom actions, does not run custom actions, or runs alternate custom action when the package is uninstalled.
  • Test that the package works as expected when uninstalling custom actions.
    If the installation must be capable of being run by users that do not have administrator privileges, test to ensure that all the custom actions can be run with non-administrator privileges.
  • Custom actions require elevated privileges to modify parts of the system that are not user specific. The installer may run custom actions with elevated privileges if a managed application is being installed or if the system policy has been specified for elevated privileges. Any custom actions the require elevated privileges must include the msidbCustomActionTypeInScript and msidbCustomActionTypeNoImpersonate Custom Action In-Script Execution Options in the custom action type.
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How-to Windows Installer, Application Compatibility and Deployments

How to Test Application MSI Packages for UAC

The easiest way to simulate the UAC is to install an MSI from an elevated command line. In Vista choose to run the command prompt as Administrator. Then install an MSI. You can flag an MSI, by modifying the WordCount in the Summary Information Stream, so that it does not automatically require elevation during an install. This MSI would only be able to write to the user profile and not any protected system location. In corporate deployments this is a rare scenario.

The application installer will always need to be elevated but this will be handled by the deployment tool. If an application does turn out to be badly written then this scenario can be handled in the same way as under a locked down XP machine. Specific NTFS permissions would be given for the file, folder or registry key.

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How-to Microsoft Windows Installer, Application Compatibility and Deployments

Most Common ICEs found while Package Validation in Re-packaged applications

If you repackage an installation with any version of Installshield AdminStudio, and when you try to validate it,  you will most certainly see..

ICE33 – This ICE is caused by the fact that repackager adds COM related information into the registry table as supposed to the Microsoft recommended Class ID, Prog ID and Type Lib tables. This Error can be safely ignored as the application should work properly as your com information will be registered via the Registry table.

ICE64 – This ICE warns about directories created under the User Profile folder not being specified in the RemoveFile table. So for example if your msi package contains [AppDataFolder]mydir or [PersonalFolder]mysubfolder, ensure that ‘mydir’ & ‘mysubfolder’ are specified in the RemoveFile table. Doing so will ensure that they get removed at uninstallation time.

ICE57 – If you have a component in your msi package that contains both per-user & per-machine data e.g if the component is installing a file to [AppDataFolder] and also contains a registry key being installed under HKLM. you can expect to see this Error/Warning. The ideal thing to do is separate User data from machine data into separate components. Anytime you have a component that is installing to a User Profile directory, make sure that the component does not contain a key file. This component should instead have a key path. This component should contain a registry key under the HKCU hive, set as the key path. If your msi package does not contain any registry keys under HKCU hive, create a dummy key to ensure that your user profile data is installed properly for subsequent user logging on the machine.

ICE50 – This ICE usually occurs when your installation tool is unable to extract icon from the Icon file specified in the shortcut. Sometimes InstallShield Editor displays this error. The best way to work around it is to specify an Exe or different ico file in the shortcut to extract the icon from.

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Best Practices Windows Installer, Application Compatibility and Deployments

MSI Package Validation using ORCA

ORCA provides a graphical interface to the package validation functionality available as part of the MSI SDK and in several third-party tools. Validation can flag many common problems in MSI packages by analyzing package data for invalid cells or combinations of cells that are not consistent.

Validation is performed by one or more Internal Consistency Evaluators, that are organized into CUB files. Several standard validators and CUB files are provided as part of the Platform SDK. ORCA can also use custom validators and CUB files.

Choosing a CUB File

You can select a CUB file for use during the validation run in three ways:

Select a CUB file from the drop-down list.
The list contains all CUB files registered on the system for use in validation.
Type a full path to the CUB file in the edit control.
Click the “Browse” button and locate a CUB file.
The default value for validation can be changed by choosing Options… from the Tools menu and changing the Default ICE File value on the Validation tab.

Selecting ICEs to Run

You can limit the set of ICE validators that run from a particular CUB file by changing the value in the ICEs to Run field of the validation dialog.

The set of validators to run can be specified in two ways:

Specifying no value selects the default set of ICEs from the CUB file.
A set of individual ICEs can be selected by specifying the ICE names, separated by a colon character (‘:’). The set of ICEs available depends on the CUB file selected.
The default value for this field can be changed by choosing Options… from the Tools menu and changing the ICEs to Run value on the Validation tab.
Running Validation

To run validation, click the Go button. ORCA executes the specified validators in the selected CUB file, validating the current database, including any changes to the database that have not been saved.

Filtering Information Messages

To not place information messages from the validators in the list of results, uncheck the Show “INFO” Messages option. This option can be toggled while validation is running, in which case, it affects messages generated from that time on but not messages that have already been generated.

Warning and information messages can be filtered by default by selecting the appropriate options in the Tools\Options configuration dialog box on the Validation tab.

Placing Results on the Clipboard

To copy the results of a validation run to the clipboard for pasting in another application, click the Copy Results button.

Using the Validation Pane

When the validation dialog box is closed, all warnings and errors in the validation window are copied to the validation pane at the bottom of the ORCA window. To show or hide the validation pane, choose Validation Pane from the View menu. Hiding the validation pane does not erase the contents.

To jump to the location of an error, select the error by clicking on it or using the arrow keys in the window to move to the desired error. The table list and table view immediately jump to the exact location of the error that was reported by the validator.

If a table or row that contains an error is deleted, any validation errors associated with that row are deleted from the validation pane.

The data in the validation pane is replaced each time the database is validated.

Examining Table and Cell Errors

To examine the errors associated with a specific cell, right-click on the cell and choose Errors…. The error information associated with the cell appears in a small dialog. If more than one error is associated with the cell, you can click the Previous and Next buttons to switch between the different errors.

To examine the errors associated with a table but not a specific cell, right-click on the table name in the table list and choose Errors…. The error information associated with the table appears in a small dialog. If more than one error is associated with the table you can click the Previous and Next buttons to switch between the different errors.

The information presented in the Errors dialog box is the same information available in the validation pane.

If a table does not exist in the database but contains a validation warning or error (such warnings and errors usually indicate that the table or a value within the table is required but not present), a Shadow Table appears in the table list. This table is used to provide access to the validation errors or warnings associated with the table, but does not indicate the presence of the table in the database. When a shadow table is selected, the table view pane that normally displays the contents of the table does not contain any table information and indicates that the table does not exist in the database.

If there are no errors associated with the cell or table, the Errors… option is disabled.

Cancelling Validation

To cancel the validation, press the Cancel button. No additional validators run and a cancel request is sent to the currently running validator. Some ICE validators acknowledge the cancel request and stop immediately. Other validators run to completion before accepting the cancel request.

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Best Practices Windows Installer, Application Compatibility and Deployments

Application Packaging Advantages & Installer Benefits

Application packaging bundles applications and operating systems into a single file called a distribution unit (.msi), which makes it easier to deploy and install them on user’s computers. Packaging reduces the total cost of ownership for the customers by enabling them to efficiently install and configure the applications. This results in an application package, which provides the product with new capabilities like advertise features without installing them, installs products on demand, add user customizations etc.

Advantages of Packaging(creating MSI packages)

    1. Customize Applications to suit the user needs.
    2. Simplify the Installation and Un-installation Procedures.
    3. Saves Time in both Installation and Un-installation.
    4. Once packaged, applications can be quickly installed on a range of desktops in multiple locations, saving administrative costs, simplifying the manage of licensing fees and minimizing support and repair expenditures.
    5. Saves Space of the product by doing apt modifications to applications.
    6. Has a great flexibility of obtaining the lost files through a phenomenon called Self Heal, this reduces the down time of application. If a critical file (a .DLL or .EXE file, for example) that is part of the distribution is corrupt or is deleted, the user can be prompted to repair the installation by presenting the original .MSI distribution. Additionally, if the installation media is available (for example, on a network share), the repair simply happens automatically.
    7. Can be advertised. So that on demand installation could take place.
    8. Upgrading of the application can be done with ease.
    9. Clean installation and Un-Installation is achieved by a process called Roll-Back.
    10. Simplifies management of new user set-up along with the revision and distribution of software repairs and new applications to existing users. Application recovery can also be improved.
    11. Helps eliminate uncontrolled software downloads and installation, enables applications to be safely removed and reduces non-business traffic on a corporate network.
    12. Using .MSI format, can automate software distribution process and ensure that the installation doesn’t break other applications that have already been installed.
    13. Application is installed via an OS service.
    14. State management is maintained. In the past, it’s been difficult to know whether an application is installed on a machine. You would have to query for a .DLL with a specific version number or determine whether an .EXE file with a specific name was present. Windows Installer provides an application programming interface (API) that lets programmers and administrators see whether a specific application is installed on a machine.
    15. Scriptable API. This whips together a VBScript to help us with the MSI file manipulations. The API to manipulate MSI files is so powerful that it can create, validate and update packages, trigger installs and uninstalls, examine the MSI repository data on computers, and perform some custom actions.
    16. Served installs. Because MSI files can be housed in a share point and delivered via a server, we can keep our installation files all in one place or move them around — closer to the users if necessary.

Hope this article helps the people who keep their first steps in packaging… 🙂