Vista file permissions issue

[Spitz]

I'm running into a problem with Vista were my permissions after I install are messed up. I can't create or copy any files in the new directory. I check my permissions and I'm not telling install creator to create it as read only. Any idea on what is happening here? My install package works fine on XP.

[Yves]

On XP usually people have administrator rights, not with Vista. For limited user accounts the Program Files directory is protected, you cannot write to it. When you run an install program, Vista usually runs it in administrator mode, so the install program is allowed to install the program in the Program Files directory, but the program itself is not allowed to do that. You should write your data files to the user's Application Data folder.

[Spitz]

Another work around is to right click on the icon and say run as administrator. Is it possible to get Install Creator to by default to set this attribute?

[Yves]

There is no option for that in the current version, we'll try to add one in a next build.

[Paul_Boland]

On XP usually people have administrator rights, not with Vista. For limited user accounts the Program Files directory is protected, you cannot write to it. When you run an install program, Vista usually runs it in administrator mode, so the install program is allowed to install the program in the Program Files directory, but the program itself is not allowed to do that. You should write your data files to the user's Application Data folder.

Oh man, I've got a headache!
LOL! No really, I don't fully understand this. Are the days of creating simple install programs gone now that Vista is here? What's the current situation in regard to creating installations with Install Creator?

[James]

Hmm, it sounds a bit like the way Mac does it- an installer prompts you to type in the administrator password, and then goes on as normal.

[Yves]

Paul, sorry for your headache. You should have no problems with your installers or applications. More info (hopefully not too confusing...) :

- On Vista, the applications are executed by default with normal (limited) privileges, even on administrator accounts. In this mode, applications are not allowed to write to system folders like the Program Files folders or to system folders in the registry (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE, etc). (in fact they can, see below)

- for applications (like installers) that need to write to system folders, there is a Run As Administrator command. If you use this command, Vista runs the application with elevated privileges (it asks for a confirmation and for an admin password if necessary).

- Vista also has an option to automatically detect installers : if it detects an application is an installer, it will use the Run As Administrator command to run it, so that for example it's allowed to install files to the Program Files directory.

- When you run your application, it has limited privileges, unlike your installer. I.e. your application is theoretically not allowed to write to system folders. However as lots of old applications write files to their install directory in the Program Files folder or to system registry keys, Microsoft has implemented a virtualisation system that allows them to do it : in fact files are not written to the system folder, they are written to a virtual folder in the user's application data folder, but appear in the system directory in the open/save file selectors. For example if your application saves "Paul.dat" to the C:\Program Files\PaulLtd\Caretaker folder, Vista will save it to C:\Users\YourUserName\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\P rogram Files\PaulLtd\Caretaker but will display it in file Open/Save selectors as if it was in C:\Program Files\PaulLtd\Caretaker.

This virtualization system is a little confusing, so you should just follow the following rules if possible :

- your application shouldn't save files to its install directory

- if your application saves settings to a config file, it should save it to a sub-directory of the user's Application Data folder

- if your application saves settings to the registry, it should save them in the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\YourCompany\YourProduct folder

Yves.

[TDA]

So lets say you have an app that is installed in

c:\program files\foo

and when you launch the app, it check for new data (art)

It checks...and there IS!


so now,

you want the app to download the new art here:

c:\program files\foo\art

Will it?

[Yves]

The files will be created in the VirtualStore folder, but will be loadable from the program files folder. You should test it anyway.

Yves.

[00J]

So any chance of MMF moving on to MAC? :whistle: