Wix: Copy files in Custom Action to Programm Directory ( Windows 7)

Question

I created a managed CustomAction to copy 2 files not included in the *.MSI to the installation directory.

While this works in Windows XP, it fails in Windows 7. Although the log say the files are copied to the desired location, C:\\Program Files\\MyApp\\ , they are actually copied to C:\\Users\\MyUser\\AppData\\Local\\VirtualStore\\Program Files (x86)\\MyApp\\ . My guess is that this has to do with access rights to modify the program folder.

This is how I call the custom action in WiX:

<CustomAction 
    Id='InstallSource'
    BinaryKey='SrcInstActionDll'
    DllEntry='InstallSourceFiles'
    Execute='deferred'
    Impersonate='no'/>
<CustomAction
    Id="InstallSource.SetProperty"
    Return="check"
    Property="InstallSource"
    Value='Files=[SourceDir]$(var.SourceZipName),[SourceDir]$(var.SymbolsZipName);TargetDir=[ParentFolder]'
    Execute='immediate'/>

The CustomAction itself simply invokes File.Copy() . Other files copied by the installer work perfectly in Windows 7. Only those files copied using the CustomAction have the described problem.

Answer 1

Indeed this behavior is caused by the file system redirection triggered when a 32 bit app (in a 64 bits Windows) running as an standard user tries to write to some privileged folder.

For me it looks like your custom action is not running elevated . Since the custom action definition looks correct the question that remains is where you are firing this custom action.

Since you mention the log I assume you are running msiexec and checking the logs. Make sure that your custom action runs after a line that looks like:

MSI (s) (BC:70) [13:34:10:669]: MSI_LUA: Elevation required to install product, will prompt for credentials
MSI (s) (BC:70) [13:34:59:528]: MSI_LUA: Credential Request return = 0x0
MSI (s) (BC:70) [13:34:59:528]: MSI_LUA: Elevated credential consent provided. Install will run elevated

Some time ago I had a similar issue with custom actions and this blog post helped me to figure out how to fix it. This is another post that I think may help

Hope this helps

Answer 2

Like you said, I think that your Custom Action needs elevation. Since your CA is a .Net project, it's kind of eassy to set it up to support elevation.

Please check the next link, it has a good explanation on how to handdle UAC on a .Net project.

enabling-your-application-for-uac-on-vista

Hope it helps.