I have an MSI installer that was built from a VS2010 setup project. Part of the installation includes adding or modifying registry keys. (The keys are modified if the install is an upgrade, rather than a first time install.)
The installer works fine when it’s a first time install, but when it’s an upgrade it appears that the installation remains incomplete until an application shortcut is clicked. What I mean by this is: the installation completes successfully, however those registry keys will not exist until an application shortcut (i.e. in the Start menu) created by the installation process is clicked. At that point, the installer starts up with a message along the lines of Please wait while applicationXXX is configured.... This happens only once, after which the keys are written and all is well with the universe.
But why does this happen? And more importantly, how can I “force” the installer to complete the installation and write those registry keys without having to click an application shortcut? I should also mention that running the application’s executable directly doesn’t trigger this final installation process; it only seems to work if a shortcut is clicked.
Any help/insight would be appreciated.
The installation is repaired automatically when using a shortcut because that shortcut is advertised. This is the normal Windows Installer behavior for broken installations.
To determine why your registry entries are not installed during an upgrade, try creating a verbose install log.
Most likely the key paths of your registry entry components are seen as already installed. This may happen if the key paths are files instead of the actual registry entries. You can check the key paths in Component table (edit the MSI with Orca).