MSI: How to retrieve who installed product?

Question

MSI Installer can be installed PerUser or PerMachine.

I'd like to detect before the new version installation: was previous version installed PerUser or PerMachine?

If PerMachine do nothing because Installer will remove the previous version and install the new one, ok. If PerUser then check: was it installed user which is the current user? If current user==user who installed then suggest to user switch installation to PerUser and continue. Else give message "User 'other_user' need to uninstall manually etc".

The question is: how I can check in c# the user name who installed the current version of product?

Answer 1

Oleg,

Based on other questions you've asked I understand the jam that you are in. It's unfortunate but there isn't much you can do. You could wrap the MSI in a bootstrapper (EXE) to remove any existing Per-User installation for the person logged in ( assuming it wasn't pushed to the machine using the SYSTEM account ) but that wouldn't handle a situation where some other user profile had installed the app.

Here is about the best thing I can think of for your situation. Create your new installer to install to a new directory and new registry keys ( completely different foot print then your old application ). Give this new MSI a fresh UpgradeCode property. Author an active setup registry key to run a cleanup utility the next time a user logs on and then reboot the machine. Put the old UpgradeCode in the Upgrade table just in case you can get lucky for an old per-machine install.

When someone logs in for the first time your EXE will be run. It can then perform MSI API queries to look for old versions of your product and perform an uninstall. In time your old application will be removed.

I recall getting myself into this situations many years ago before I understood the ALLUSERS property. Per-User installations are a pain and only useful for non-privlidged "viral" (as in socially spread) application. It's not a good story for commercial / enterprise applications.

Answer 2

What you want doesn't make sense.

Per-user installations are visible to a single user, you won't be able to retrieve information about the per-user installed apps for user A if you are running as user B. Only per-machine installations are visible for all user.

Take a look here:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa369786(v=vs.85).aspx

Note If an application is installed in the per-user installation context, any major upgrade to the application must also be performed using the per-user context. If an application is installed in the per-machine installation context, any major upgrade to the application must also be performed using the per-machine context. The Windows Installer will not install major upgrades across installation context.

Now to answer your question... If you are executing an installer per-user and the upgrade installer detects the previous version, that means that the current user installed it.