I am creating a WIX installer project. During one managed customized action, I need to create a file (other than the deployed files specified in the components of WIX) in the installation folder, which by default is the Program Files folder. I am experiencing the "Access denied" problem in Windows 7. After some searching, I found out that people say it is not advisable to create files into Program Files folder. Instead, try to create files into for example AppData folder. For example, see this link:
C# Access denied to path in a Windows Application
But my question is, the generated file is crucial to our SW, so it must reside in the installation folder. Isn't it the target of SW installation, I mean, to create file in most of the cases Program Files folder? Does it mean the only files should be added into installation folder, during the installation, are the deployed files (basically the targets of XCopy)?
My file can't be made deploy-able in the WIX, i.e, it can't be made ready before the installation. So what's the proper way or best practice to handle such situation: a file must be generated during the installation, into the installation folder. It is not some log file that I can put somewhere else. I tried to create a Permission element in WIX for the INSTALLADIR, although it seems to be against the rule mentioned in the link, but it still failed. Thanks!
UPDATE:
Based one MichaelUrman's commen, some more information. The generated file is needed after the SW is installed and necessary during normal launch of the SW. And I think it needs to be modified during normal use after the installation. And as I mentioned my a comment to #caveman_dick answer, my CA is actually in commit phase, I don't know whether there is any difference between it and normal deferred CA
Set the custom action to Execute="deferred", that will run the command elevated and should give it the required permissions to create the file.
Since you need to update that file from the main application, and I'm assuming your application does not require elevated privileges, you have three options.
The first is the worst: without a manifest, your executable's attempts to write to the Program Files folder will typically result in it being redirected to the Virtual Store (see File Virtualization). It sounds like this isn't happening in your case, so you can't use it.
The second option is to modify the application to store this in an appropriate location such as the ProgramData folder, or Common Documents, or (if appropriate) a per-user location under LocalAppData. This is typically the best approach, but has the highest development costs.
Finally the third option is to create the file and change its permissions (or in some cases to change the permissions on the folder containing the file), allowing limited users to modify this file. See LockPermissions or MsiLockPermissionsEx for the Windows Installer way to approach this. Change the permissions on as few files or folders, as restricted as possible, to keep the system as safe as possible if you go with this option.
Related
I made the msi package to allow the user to choose installation directory for the application.
I want the user to only download the application where it doesn't need read write permissions from the user, like %APP_DATA%/Roaming/my_app_example_name.
The reason being that the application has a self update mechanism and updates itself when it detects a new version on the server. The update itself doesn't use an msi launcher, it just downloads the new version of the app from the server using a http request, and replaces the old files.
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For example, in the popular game spiral knights, they implemented this mechanism like this:
Here, you can see that the default installtation directory is the Appdata folder
If i change the installation directory to ProgramFiles, and try to install, I get this error :
It effectively blocks installation to the directory simply because it doesn't have permissions to create a folder from the installer itself, there.
I would like to implement the same mechanism, or something similar, because I think this is a very elegant solution to my problem. So any ideas on how to do this?
(By the way, I'm using jpackage to create the msi launchers)
You can use --win-per-user-install option with jpackage.
On Windows, the default is c:\Program Files\application-name; if the
--win-per-user-install option is used, the default is C:\Users\user-name\AppData\Local\application-name
More details on options at jpackage docs
Hi I am trying to find out what is the best location to save a cache file.
I have an Windows form application that updates user's data from the server using a custom tool.
I want to write the timestamp of the latest updates done on user's machine in the cache file.
Where is the best location for keeping this file:
1. in application directory (c:\program files..)
2. in a temp location e.g. Users profile folder or c:\windows\temp
3. in any location (e.g. c:\dataupdates) where user has full access to read/write to.
Not in the application directory. That much is clear. :) The application directory shouldn't even be writable by the program (or actually by the user account that runs the program). Although some applications still use this location, it has actually been deprecated since Windows 95, I believe, and it has become a real pain since the more rigid UAC applied in Windows Vista and 7.
So the most obvious options are:
The temp folder, which is for temporary files. Note however, that you will need to clean those files up. Temp folder is not automatically cleared by default, so adding new files all the time will consume increasingly much space on the hard drive. On the other hand, some users do clear their temp folders, or may have scripts installed that do that for them, so you cannot trust such files to remain. Also, this is not always C:\Temp of whatever. You'll have to ask Windows what the location is.
You can pick 'any' location. Note that you cannot write anywhere. You cannot even expect the C drive to exist. If you choose this, then you have to make it a configurable setting.
The %app data% directory, my personal favorite, which is a special directory for applications to store their data in. The advantage is, that you can ask Windows for this location, and you can make up a relative path based on that directory, so you don't really have to make it an application setting. For more info on how to get it, see also this question: C# getting the path of %AppData%
I would definitely choose the App Data path for this purpose.
I'm deploying a .NET application with VS2010. My application creates .txt file in the logs folder in the same directory with .exe:
app.exe
add.exe.config
logs (folder)
I used setup project to create a MSI installer. When I installed in the client machine C: drive or any drives I have no problem to create the .txt file, but when I installed in C:\Program File\myAppFolder or C:\Program File(x86)\myAppFolder I cannot to create the .txt file.
It is a poor design to write to install location for your application. It is better to write to the ApplicationDataFolder. The ApplicationDataFolder is under the user profile and the application will have access to write there when run as that user. #Ken White provided a very good pointer to an existing StackOverflow answer about this.
If this is a legacy application that must write to that folder, then you'll need to modify the permissions on the log folder such that all users can write to the folder. This is possible to do with the Windows Installer (aka: MSI) but I'm not sure that the Visual Studio setup projects expose it. The WiX toolset definitely supports doing such things.
An old post but I needed to do similar recently so I guess it is still valid! While I don't advocate bad design, in the real world sometimes we have to bend to requirement.
Writing to the application folder is possibly under Win7 and it is possible to set this up via an installer class in an MSI created by VS2010. You just need to give a relevant group (suggest either the "Users" group, or if you want to give more control over who gets what, supply a selection screen) Write-Data access.
Using DirectoryInfo on a path you can then get the security data from GetAccessControl.
When you have your Group known, get the SID for the group and AddAccessRule also supplying the required ControlType value.
Then set the access control on the DirectoryInfo object (SetAccessControl) using the security data object.
You can get the SID from the Groups principal object if you do a search with PrincipalSearcher.
Hope this helps
paul
This generally all depends on:
Whether your app requires to be run as administrator for other reasons and..
Whether your app is provided for limited users.
If the app requires elevation for a bunch of other reasons (and not just updating files in restricted locations) then the normal way is to have an elevation manifest embedded in your app. This isn't a good thing from the security point of view, but if you absolutely need admin privilege then this is the way to do it.
If the only operation requiring elevation is updating/creating data in the Program Files folder then don't put the file there. Every case of this that I've seen has been lazy programming where the code just refers to the file name and consequently it goes in the Program Files folder (more accurately in the same folder that the app runs in). The cure for this is to put the data file in the correct location (such as User's Application Data folder). As Rob Mensching says, you should alter the permissions on the install folder only if this is a legacy app that you cannot change.
The default installation location of our applications is c:\Program Files folder. Due to virtulization, this is not a good location to install our applications in 'Program Files' folder in Windows 7. What is the preferred default installation location in Windows 7..
Does microsoft say specify anything on this?
Where can I get more information on this?
Our application can create projects which are kept in c:\Program Files\PolyCd\Projects folder. User can copy these files to other machines to use the project files. We also don't want to run the application as administrator to avoid prompting whenever the application starts. This enables virtualizations. And hence the user won't be able to see the project files he created in c:\Program Files\PolyCd\Projects folder
I have one more question. What is the preferred location of keeping the application specific data such as the project information I mentioned earlier
Ah, thanks for the clarification. Your problem is where you are storing the data. Generally, settings and the likes should be stored in the folder specified by the environment variable AppData. Project data, documents, etc however should generally be stored in the user's "Documents" folder.
'Program Files' or 'Program Files (x86)' for 32-bit software on 64-bit Windows. But you would usually use a variable like $PROGRAMFILES so Windows finds the folder itself.
Since you asked specifically "does Microsoft say anything on this?" let me show you the Windows logo requirements from Microsoft. After you download that document, you can read guidance that includes what folder to install to (Program Files) and where to keep the user's data and settings (ProgramData or AppData). If you follow these guidelines, not only will your application behave as users expect, you will find it easy to get the Windows Logo for your application, which is a shortcut into the partner program. Many of my clients save tends of thousands of dollars on software by being in the partner program, so don't dismiss the value of the logo. But the immediate value to you is clear direction about where to put your app and where to put the user's data.
I have an old update program written in vb6, which runs as admin. However, because it runs as admin, all the files it downloads and saves are read-only to other users. Even files in public places like the shared application data folder (which is where I'm saving the files in question).
I'm lucky I found this before the 'vista-compatible' release. Vista hides the problem by redirecting non-admin writes and future reads to a sortof 'virtual' folder. But the next update may replace the file, and the non-admin program will still go to the virtual folder and use the old file.
As the admin user, how do I allow other users full control of files I write in vb6?
The way I do this is to make it an Installer responsibility.
Use VSI 1.1 to create an Installer MSI for your application. Create an application data folder under CommonAppDataFolder.
As a post-build step run a script to perform the following:
Set the MSI database for a per-machine installation: Property table, row with ALLUSERS set to 1.
In the Directory table, locate the entry for CommonAppDataFolder and obtain its directory Index. Use this Index to query the Directory table for an entry where CommonAppDataFolder is the parent and obtain its Index (this is your app data subfolder).
Look in the File table to obtain the component Index of your program.
Create the CreateFolder table in the database if it isn't present. Add a row to CreateFolder for the desired application subdirectory by its Index, tying it to your program's component Index.
Create the LockPermissions table if it isn't present. Insert a new LockPermissions row for your application data subdirectory, giving it FILE_ALL_ACCESS for Everyone.
That's about it.
You can do it this way, or use VSI 1.1 and then edit the MSI using Orca, or probably by using a 3rd party MSI authoring tool these entries will be settable via its GUI and can be saved in the Installer project. I just use a small WSH script I run after each VSI 1.1 build.
AFAIK this is the recommended way of accomplishing such things according to Windows application guidelines. If your needs are fancier you might use multiple subdirectories or sub-subdirectories some allowing full access, some read-only, etc.
Your program can locate the folder using Shell Automation objects or by calling Shell32 as a standard DLL (using Declare Function or a TLB).
It's not necessarily who writes the file, but where they write it to. The program files folder and it's sub folders are read-only to all standard users by default. Try using the All Users Application Data folder instead.
This is a little tricky for VB6, since it was not at all designed with Vista in mind. Some of the relevant folders were re-named and there's no way I know to get vb6 to give you the exact folder you want short of using a "Declare Function" alias to call directly into the windows API.
So the easiest reliable way I know to find a suitable location is to use the %ALLUSERSPROFILE% environment variable. That returns "C:\Documents and Settings\All Users" by default on XP and "C:\ProgramData" by default on Vista. From there you can look for an "Application Data" folder. It won't be there and you don't need it on Vista, but creating one if it doesn't exist won't hurt anything. That gives you a consistent folder structure on both systems from which you can create a sub folder for your app to use as a work space.
And one final note: this isn't a new change for Vista. Program Files folders have always been read-only to standard users by default. XP worked the same way. It's just that so many people run as administrators in XP you might be able to get away with it.