I have an application written in Delphi 2006 that was working fine in Windows XP. I packed the application using Inno Setup, using Program Files as the default folder. A few users migrated to Windows Vista and Windows 7. The issue here is that the application creates some files inside its installation folder by its own. This was working in XP but in Windows Vista the users were having problems with the created files (they don't appear and so on). After investigating the users' reports I discovered KB 927387: "Common file and registry virtualization issues in Windows Vista or in Windows 7."
Running the application with administrator rights just solves the problem, but that is (I think) an awful workaround. I would like to know if there are any directives or tips for making the application compatible with Vista and 7, because more users will migrate to these OS soon.
You need to re-write your application to store its files in the proper locations, even in XP, but especially in Vista onwards, particularly if UAC is enabled. This is becoming more and more important to get right as Microsoft keeps locking down and enforcing its security models with each new OS version. The rules for how to properly manage application- and user-related files is documented on MSDN, for example: "Application Specification for Microsoft Windows 2000 for Desktop Applications, Chapter 4: Data and Settings Management" and "Application Specification for Microsoft Windows 2000 for Desktop Applications Appendix A: Best Practices" (yes, they are old, but are still quite relevant). Look at SHGetSpecialFolderLocation(), SHGetFolderPath(), SHGetKnownFolderPath() and other related functions to help you.
For Vista/Win7, your app can't put the files in a subfolder of Program Files / Programs unless UAC is turned off or the app is running as elevated. Note that "elevated" does not necessarily mean "logged in as Administrator." Non-administrator users can elevate, and Administrator isn't necessarily elevated.
If the app does attempt to write to Program Files but is not elevated, the OS will either block the app or "virtualize" the write (put the files somewhere else), depending upon how UAC is configured. Neither one helps the app succeed at what it was trying to od.
So it needs to put them somewhere else. Where depends on why the files are being created, and you haven't told us that. You can read this article to learn about the options. Note that in addition to the user's AppData and Roaming folders, there is also an "All Users" (shared) profile.
You should probably look at this article and screencast, which discusses UAC in depth from a Delphi point of view.
Files you create for use by your application other than at installation time should go into the ProgramData directory if its global to the workstation, or into the users ApplicationData directory if its specific to the user.
For cases where you absolutely must place a file in the program files directory, you can use com to request elevation. This is discussed in great detail, and delphi specific bits are also available. One example that I have used this is in patching my users installation base. They are warned by UAC that the system needs to make changes, so if your doing this as an automated task, you might need to rethink the logic to be more user driven.
Here is another article, by Zarko Gajic, which shows how to get different system directories. Also have a look at this related question.
I had a similar enquiry here (Stack Overflow).
In the end I realised that I needed to put my application into Program Files at install time (requiring UAC/elevation) and then store my app's data in the user's App Data folder. I had to change the way my program generated 'default' configuration settings and also where I was saving this stuff, but it was worth the effort in the end - we ended up with something that installs and runs fine on XP, Vista and Windows 7.
The only UAC hit we get is at installation time, which makes sense to me (and you get a similar hit at install-time on the Mac too). We didn't have any data that would be common to all users in this particular case but I would have looked at the Program Data special folder if that had been the case.
The installer software we use (Setup Factory) made this fairly straightforward (we just wrote a small bit of code to detect XP versus Vista/Win7 and choose the right special folder accordingly). It would be easy to do this in Inno Setup too, from what limited experience I have of it.
Related
I have standard instalations of some programs, and althou they are freeware and i can download them and install on any machine, things are not that easy always. When system crash and i dont have working machine or working internet connection or lan card or drivers for lan card i always struggle to find them and make them work if some dependency file is not on that version of windows.
What i need is to know is how can i make applications portable so i can run them from my usb or just copy them from my usb on pc and run, what dependency files application require, and what files and where specific application install?
It's a complicated story but let's try to summarize. Starts from the part "why?"
I'm an obsessive guy who seriously "hates" installers. I love to have a clean system without bloated in files reg entries and DLL's. Thats why I make nearly all (at least 97%) of programs that I use portable. I made more than 600 up to today and what I can say is;
You need:
1- A program to watch file system (what included after installation)
I use this. Simple and straight (sorry not freeware, but you can find tons of alternates)
http://www.samsunsegman.com/um/
2- A program to watch registry (what changed or included after installation)
I use this in HTML mode. Free fast and simple. And portable in nature.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/regshot/
Now scan the system with these 2, and than run the installer. After open the installed program and make your settings as you want. And than use this 2 program to find the added files and registry entries.
For files, delete them to trash can and take them back from trash in batch (easy to do like that) to the folder of application.
Registry, open the related branches in registry, delete any entries containing addressings like (plugins folder = c:\prog.... etc) After right click on main branch and select export. This is your reg settings...
3- Download this program http://ctuser.net/?reg2exe
This will convert your reg file to an exe file.
4- Download this application http://download.cnet.com/FilePacker/3000-2216_4-10414081.html
Note: Click on "Direct Download Link" if not you'll cnet will welcome you with their installer :)
And with this program (I use this because have no interference with any application) pack the program that you want to make portable. In wizard, first choose your reg-exe file after main programs file. Launcher will execute them with this order. And in setting choose "delete after terminate" will delete the extracted files on exit.
You can discover the further details. This helps you to portabilitize nearly 75% of simple applications.
5- For complicated programs or complicated needs you even can make home made loaders like
Before executing the app, put the user files under appdata folder (that I hate)
Put settings in registry (even with dynamically modified "path" addresses)
Choose which to execute (x86 or x64)
Execute in admin mode if needed
Execute the app... And when application is terminated...
Delete the settings from registry
Take the user files from appdata folder and put under programs folder (usb etc) back.
Delete left-over files under the system...
I just wrote these last ones to make you understand how far you can go. And for all these extra tricks, I use just and just bat files. And I convert them to exe also with this software. http://www.f2ko.de/programs.php?lang=en&pid=b2e (also free)
All the softwares that I use except "uninstall manager" are free. And with this technique, amazing but some of programs are running even faster.
Actually you can just use JauntePE or portable apps packer things but... Jaunte and similar sandbox making programs are so slow and not compatible with all. Even causing crashes. Portable apps approach is a bit bloated regarding to my strict spped and size standards. That's why I do it myself about for 10 years (yes even people was not talking about portability)
Note: I'm not a programmer, and you also don't need to be to do these.
I never released my portables, and you also shouldn't (read EULA's) for respect to authors.
But never forget to demand portable version from all authors. Force them to quit installers ;)
Best regards
inovasyon did a great job!
If you want to make some portable app that will work on every computer you move it to, then 99.9% of apps can be made portable.
If you also expect the app to not leave any files, folders or registry entries behind and not change or break things on the host PC's setup, then that limits things a bit further.
Apps requiring admin privileges to write to protected areas of the registry or file system will break when used on PCs with locked-down privileges.
Apps requiring services to be installed on the host PC will often leave them behind.
You must to know there are apps that are locked to specific PCs - Microsoft's recent versions of Office are a great example of this. They simply will not run when moved to another PC.
Also, you'll need some tools for making portable app: cameyo, thinapp, boxedapp, portableapps, spoon, app-v and other.
Portable applications will run from a flash drive, and from the computer.
Good Luck!
Here is a primer for setting up a portable app using the PortableApps.com tools. They have a page for developers that is quite helpful for some specifics, but the overall process is not well summarized. Here is the general outline for creating a portable application:
1. Investigate your application's footprints
Find all the files, registry locations and settings of the application you want to make portable (make use of point (1) and (2) in inovasyon's answer, and maybe take a look at Zsoft). It is usally a good idea to fire-up a virtual machine and track the application's changes without much clutter.
2. The PortableApp generator
Download, extract, and open the PortableApps.com Platform, and follow [The system tray icon] →[Apps] →[Get More Apps] →[By Category] to install the PortableApps.com Launcher, and NSIS (Unicode) needed to Portabilize your app. Alternatively, but with some added hassle, download both the PortableApps.com Launcher and NSIS Portable (Unicode version) as standalones.
You can now compile a project by running the PortableApps.com Launcher and pointing it to your project.
3. PortableApp layout and structure
Download the PortableApp.com Application Template (search for it here) to structure the data and files obtained in (1.) according to the specifications. Also, download some apps from portableapps.com for some practical examples of how they are structured, and to learn more about the struggles of portability (such as the substitution of drive letters in settings files to correspond to the movement of a portable drive).
As a "Hello World" example, try portability this simple program: helloworld.bat, with content:
#echo off
echo Hello World > log.txt
It writes all local environmental variables to the log file log.txt. You can play around a bit by trying to writing files to an %APPDATA% subdirectory and see if you can make your project redirect it to a portable directory.
4. Additional usage
If you need to do some additional coding that is not achievable with the default .ini capabilities (such as forcing only one instance of an app), add a NSIS script with file location App\AppInfo\Launcher\Custom.nsh to your project. Note that PortableApps.com's custom code guide incorrectly states the file location as Other\Source\Custom.nsh. It is also quite unhelpful regarding the layout of this script. Rather look at examples from other Apps and learn the NSIS syntax by Google-ing a bit.
Many questions on SO say "Windows developer guidelines" or "windows design guidelines" say that you shouldn't write temporary or program data to the Program Files area, but as far as I can tell none of them actually link to a piece of documentation that says as much. Searching the MSDN has yielded me no results. Windows will make the area read-only, so it can be enforced by the OS, but that doesn't mean developers didn't try to write there anyway (e.g., when porting older, XP and earlier based programs forward.)
I realize that it seems odd to ask about it this late into Windows development (since, as a commenter below pointed out, has been enforced by the OS for more than a decade), but a document that says so is sometimes necessary to satisfy people.
With that in mind, Does Microsoft have a document published stating we shouldn't write application data to the Program Files area, and if so, where is it?
From Technical requirements for the Windows 7 Client Software Logo Program:
Install to the correct folders by default
Users should have a consistent and secure experience with the default
installation location of files, while maintaining the option to
install an application to the location they choose. It is also
necessary to store application data in the correct location to allow
several people to use the same computer without corrupting or
overwriting each other's data and settings.
Windows provides specific locations in the file system to store
programs and software components, shared application data, and
application data specific to a user:
Applications should be installed to the Program Files folder by default. User data or application data must never be stored in this
location because of the security permissions configured for this
folder (emphasis added)
All application data that must be shared among users on the computer should be stored within ProgramData
All application data exclusive to a specific user and not to be shared with other users of the computer must be stored in
Users\<username>\AppData
Never write directly to the "Windows" directory and or subdirectories. Use the correct methods for installing files, such as
fonts or drivers
In “per-machine” installations, user data must be written at first run and not during the installation. This is because there is no
correct user location to store data at time of installation. Attempts
by an application to modify default association behaviors at a machine
level after installation will be unsuccessful. Instead, defaults must
be claimed on a per-user level, which prevents multiple users from
overwriting each other's defaults.
And I'm quite sure that there's similar stuff for every Windows version of the NT family going back to Windows NT 4 or even earlier.
See also this question.
Edit: the original link in this post to the Windows 7 Logo program exists no more. Here you find the current link to the Certification requirements for Windows Desktop Apps. See Section 10, Apps must install to the correct folders by default
In later versions of windows (Vista, 7 and of course server versions) access permission are restricted for "special folders" including "Program Files". Even if your program is elevated to have sufficient privileges to write to this folder it is still a bad idea.
I don't know of any guidelines that state this but there is a list of special folders and what they are meant for. The fact that there is a special folder for nearly all types of data I can image means there is no need to use the program files folder.
I work on a vb6 application which is having problems with Vista, for the obvious reasons (writing to program files, and other things that are no longer allowed by default).
Where should I store application data or user's saved files?
Do I need priviledges to create folders and files, there, too?
What other common actions will cause problems?
The program has an updater which must download and register files, how do I elevate priviledges when this occurs?
Some of these questions have obvious answers, but I want to get the obvious stuff right.
Depending upon what you are doing, you might be in for a world of pain. There are no hard and fast answers to any of those questions, but from someone who is going through the same issues right now, here's what I know.
1) Where should I store application data or user's saved files?
This depends on what you are wanting to do. If you want them per user, store them in Users/AppData, if you want them for all users, store them in Common/AppData
If SHGetFolderPath(0, CSIDL_COMMON_APPDATA, -1, SHGFP_TYPE_CURRENT, sTempPath) = 0 Then
sCommonAppdata = Left$(sTempPath, InStr(1, sTempPath, Chr(0)) - 1) & "CompanyName\AppName"
End If
Change that to CSIDL_APPDATA for the Users AppData directory. Note: These map to totally different places on the filesystem for XP and Vista so when you are debugging prepare to look in different places.
2) Do I need priviledges to create folders and files, there, too?
You need Adminsitrator access to write anything in Program Files, if at all possible don't do it! We are currently running into issues that the API's for VB and the standard API's behave differently on files in Program Files.
3) What other common actions will cause problems?
There are lots of hidden gotchas. Just to name a few, you cannot communicate through IPC or Named Pipes to other applications (we have a Service that we were talking to through a Tray Notification Icon and that had to be completely re-written). Anything were you see a UAC notification is very difficult. Also you cannot write to anything in the Registry in LOCAL_MACHINE without Administrator, so you either have to stick to LOCAL_USER or raise credentials (see below).
4) The program has an updater which must download and register files, how do I elevate priviledges (sic) when this occurs?
Good luck with this, I highly recommend that you don't write it in VB6, like I said, the VB6 file api's appear to access files differently from the standard API's. If you need to elevate privileges see this post that someone kindly helped me with.
In the sort term turning off UAC and installing the ActiveX installer server will help. Long term you need to put data and configuration information in the users directory under \users or in \programdata.
In the short run it might not be necessary at all to modify your application, because
Vista comes with a set of compatibility options to allow legacy applications to run. This includes file and registry virtualization, a feature which basically redirects write operations to protected folders such as C:\Program Files to a virtual location only visible for the specific application running in a compatibility mode.
Some more details are mentioned in this article: How To Manage Windows Vista Application Compatibility in Dr. Dobb's.
Karl Peterson wrote a nice article on where to store user data & app data, with a VB6 class that retrieves the location of the special paths for you.
Update: Since development machine has moved to Vista, i now automatically test as a standard user. And with XP being phased out, this question isn't so relavent anymore.
Since the Windows 2000 logo requirements, Microsoft has been requiring that applications run as standard user. Like everyone else i always ran my desktop as an administrative user. And like every developer: i log in, develop, run, and test as an administrative user.
Now with a new push to finally support standard users, i've been testing my applications by running them as a normal user - either through RunAs, or having my application relaunch itself with normal rights using [SaferCreateLevel][1]/[SaferComputeTokenFromLevel][2] if it detects it is running as an administrator. i quickly see how specacularly some of my apps fail under Windows XP as a standard user (due to my own stupidity). i also see how the same applications work fine under Vista (thanks to it's numerous shims to fix my bugs for me).
Aside: It's ironic that applications are more likely to run on Vista as a standard user than on XP.
The question is do you test your applications for standard user compatiblity? Do you develop as a standard user on XP? Do you ignore standard user access and hope for the best?
i tried, as a bonus, to have my app relaunch itself as a limited user (rather than normal user). It doesn't even come up - Windows says it failed to initialize. So there an area of future research on my part: making the app even support limited user.
i specifically referred to standard users on XP rather than Vista to enforce the truth that Vista is no different from XP as far as compatibility is concerned. And anyone who says their app fails on Vista must realize it also fails on XP.
I'm going to point you to Crispin Cowan's "Best Practices for Developing for Windows Standard User" talk. It's well worth watching.
If you want to sell your application to businesses then yes, you must test your application running as a standard user. If your application can't run without administrative privelleges, that's going to doom any sale in to a business.
Even in the home market, plenty of people can and do use limited users to go about their daily activities; I know I do.
Even administrative applications that do legimately need administrative privelleges should behave sensibly when running as a limited user. They should popup up a dialog informing the user that administrative rights are required to complete whatever task it was that they were attempting.
The best way to build software that respects these limitations is to develop your software under a user that has limited privileges. That way, every time you develop a feature you're implicitly testing whether it will work in a limited environment.
None of this is hard, it just take a degree of discipline - just like all quality assurance procedures do. People have been developing as non-root users on *nix for decades. Windows development is behind the curve in this respect.
Crispin, in his PDC talk, made a very good point, one that i had never considered before.
Google Chrome installs as a standard user: it installs in the per-user folder, without needing a UAC or OTS prompt, and everything is user friendly because the install is so easy. Unfortunatly, it is installed in a per-user folder, where the user can modify it.
Put it another way: malware can modify the Chrome exe.
Chrome would now become the biggest target for any mal-ware. And if some malware does modify it, Chrome is now sending your usernames, passwords, and credit card info back to home base, because that's what the new Chrome exe does.
That is why you sometimes want applications installed to protected locations.
Edit: The entire Microsoft "Click Once" deployment inititave suffers the danger.
I run on XP as a limited user almost all of the time and as the default. (On Vista, I use an adminstrative account and rely on UAC.)
I develop as a limited user. There's very little in Java and Visual Studio development that requires any more privilege than that.
If I need to run something under the limited account but with administrative privileges, I use a MakeMeAdmin (renamed and tuned as ConsoleMeAdmin) .bat script that creates an administrative console session.
If I really need to be an administrator in order to do installs and do first-time-runs so my security software can condition itself to allow network access to the new code (or not), etc., I will elevate my Limited User Account to Administrator long enough to get all of that done, then restart the account as Limited User again. Other than for Windows Updates, I do all of my downloads as a limited user and then install off-line after elevation to Administrator.
Because I only have a small workgroup LAN with no Active Directory, the only useful account types are Administrator and Limited User on XP. (I tried power user when I first began using XP but found that I could do without it and I prefer what that teaches me about not depending on special privileges in code I build.)
[PS: I also have Data Execution Protection (supported in hardware) active by default on my XP system, and you'd be surprised what that turns up.]
In the business environment most users are standard windows domain users.
To ignore standard user compliance tests is a really bad move.
And you will get each domain administrator that has to install your application very angry and they will go to your competition.
IMHO developing in an administrator account is not only unnecessary, but also highly dangerous! Suppose you check something on the internet while developing (stackoverflow comes to mind) and you catch some malware - history shows that this is far easier than you might have thought, e.g. through banners. As an administrator this malware will infect your computer and you might never get rid of it. It can even be a danger to all your development work (think of industrial espionage)!
If you have to run/test anything as an administrator, use either runas or even better virtual machines - that way you can use separate systems with defined behaviour (lots of problems with Windows software come from libraries that are of course available on the developer's PC, but hardly anywhere else!). In times of Microsoft Virtual PC and VMWare Server (both free) there isn't even an excuse due to high prices for virtualization software.
I've developed some Windows apps some years ago and besides their installers NOTHING ever required administrative rights. The run-time settings always belong to the user, not to the machine.
And yes, I run Windows XP as normal user at home too, as do my family members (parents etc.). Sometimes a crappy piece of software needs write access to their installation folder, but 95% of all installed apps run fine out-of-the-box by today.
Yes, we test that.
Probably the simplest, but most abused, rule is that you shouldn't do anything that requires write access to your program's install folder. Instead, there's a special folder called Application Data for that kind of thing.
Yes, and I took the general advice that its much easier to get your application to run on Vista if it runs ok on XP as limited user. To achieve that, and know if there were any problems running as limited user, I used LUABuglight.
I generally don't develop as limited user but only log on as limited user for testing.
The number of programs that require Admin rights and write to their own Program Files folder is amazing. To be honest, I've found very few programs that run correctly as limited user, from any software company, big or small.
Anyone else find it funny that Windows developers think its normal to run as Admin (apparently), but Linux developers pretty much never run as root?
As an old-time BOFH I will rain fire and ugly words over anyone asking for elevated rights for their client-side applications to run properly. It's just out of the question, always was ever since around 2001-2002 when we switched from Win9x to XP (sic).
As a newly born developer in a place where everyone on XP is a local admin by a forced group policy and changing it seems to take time and noone is especially inclined to start either - I've installed the RunAsAdmin shim that lowers me down to a normal user for most tasks including developing - much like in Vista. Recommended if you're stuck as a local admin on XP ^^
I just noticed that Chromium was installed in AppData in both Vista and XP. If Google does that and if other applications does this, than is that becuase there is some form of protection? Should we write installers that does the same thing as Google?
Windows still lacks a convention for per-user installation.
When an installer asks whether to install for the current user or all users, it really only refers to shortcut placement (Start Menu; Desktop). The actual application files still go in the system-wide %PROGRAMFILES%.
Microsoft's own ClickOnce works around this by creating a completely non-standard %USERPROFILE%\Local Settings\Apps (%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming on Vista / Server 2008) directory, with both program files and configuration data in there.
(I'm at a loss why Microsoft couldn't add a per-user Program Files directory in Vista. For example, in OS X, you can create a ~/Applications, and the Finder will give it an appropriate icon. Apps like CrossOver and Adobe AIR automatically use that, defaulting to per-user apps. Thus, no permissions issues.)
What you probably should do: if the user is not an admin, install in the user directory; if they do, give them both options.
One advantage nobody mentioned are silent auto-updates. Chrome has an updater process that runs all the time and immediately updates your chrome installation.
I think their use-case is non-standard. They need a way to fix vulnerability issues (since it's a browser) as soon as possible. Waiting for admins approving every single update company-wide, is simply not good enough.
As far as I can tell, the only reason why Chrome installs into the Application Data folder is so that non-admin users can install it.
The Chrome installer currently does not allow the user to pick where the application is to be installed. Don't do that – instead, give the user a choice between a per-user (somewhere like App Data) and computer-wide (Program Files) installation.
Windows 7 and Windows Installer 5.0 provide real per-user installation capabilities now.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd408068%28VS.85%29.aspx
You can sort of fudge it in Vista and XP by using ~/AppData/Local or the equivalent like Chrome does. Microsoft themselves use this for the ClickOnce installers.
So at least on Windows 7 and beyond the solution is simple.
Frankly, I have yet to see the first installer that really allows both per-user and per-machine installations. Many installers offer this option in their GUI, but the setting only affects where the shortcuts etc. go -- the binaries always fo to %ProgramFiles%.
In fact, it is pretty hard to create Windows Installer packages that allow both kinds of installs, to say the least. With the advent of UAC, I'd say its is impossible: Per user installations must not require elevation, per machine installations have to. But whether an MSI package requires elevation is controlled via a bit in the summary information stream -- there is no way to have user input have impact on that.
Whether per-user or per-machine is the better choice greatly deoends on the application. For small packages, however, I tend to prefer per-user installations. Besides being slightly more user-friendly by not requiring an UAC prompt or runas, they also signalize the user that the setup will not do much harm to the computer (assuming he is a non-admin).
The Chrome installer really ought to allow global installation (with elevation) in addition to per-user. I don't want to have to maintain an installation for every user; I want to be able to centrally manage upgrades and so on. Chrome doesn't allow that.
That said, the option to install per-user is quite nice, as it means no permissions issues.
Just so you people know, Google has created an MSI installer for global system installation and management. It's located here:
https://www.google.com/intl/en/chrome/business/browser/
I do not see anything in %PROGRAMFILES% on Win7. Looks like Chrome must be installed for each user on the machine.
Perhaps the true reason of doing this is faking number of Chrome installations by few times ! Thus making it first browser in the world !