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MSI installation under Vista

Continuing my Vista setup and exploration, I begun installing all the software and components I used in order to develop software. Most of the MSI installation packages (including Microsoft’s CAB) though failed to complete under Vista.
It seems that some kind of privileged action needed in order to complete the installation, which is probably write access to the program files directory in order to write an InstallerState file is not allowed not even when the executable is running under an administrative account. The error message says that “Access to the path c:program filesprogramprogramInstall.InstallState is denied (P.S not event the administrator can change the access rights). The installation completes successfully though when a different installation path is specified (e.g. C:Program).
Ok it’s nice to protect the OS from various things that could damage it but from the experienced user’s perspective it gets really frustrating having to confirm every administrative action through a dialog or not allowing write access to the Program Files folder.

Published inOperating SystemSecurity

7 Comments

  1. Angel Angel

    Have anybody solved this? i”m getting mad. Please write to me to [email protected].

    Thank you for your help

  2. bmwaustin bmwaustin

    I have the same problem this is what i did to get see the actual error

    msiexec /i "path to msi" /l*v "log file.log"

  3. I don”t know if this helps but most of my installation problems have gone away after disabling User Account Control.

    Installing your software on RC2 or RTM versions of windows Vista might also help (it worked for me).

    Just out of curiosity what”s the software you”re trying to install?

  4. Adobe CS3 Adobe CS3

    I am also unable to install. Any suggestions?

  5. All installation problems have been solved since Vista were RTM”d at least for me.

  6. Diego Diego

    I was creating my own msi when I found this issue. Installation would not complete on Vista. Until, I got rid of all the “custom actions” on my “setup and deployment” project and Installation is completed ok. But I still need those custom action.

    Is not a solution if you only have the msi and not the project, but could help… somehow…

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