Question

I have written a WiX installer that works perfectly with Windows XP, but when installing to a Windows 7 box I am running into difficulty with registry entries. I need to add an HKLM entry as well as the registry entry for the program to show in the start menu. Here is the code I am using for both types of entry:

<!-- Create the registry entries for the program -->
<DirectoryRef Id="TARGETDIR">
  <Component Id="RegistryEntriesInst" Guid="...">
    <RegistryKey Root="HKLM"
                 Key="Software\$(var.Manufacturer)\$(var.ProductName)"
          Action="createAndRemoveOnUninstall">
      <RegistryValue
          Type="string"
          Name="installed"
          Value="true"
          KeyPath="yes"/>
    </RegistryKey>
  </Component>
  <Component Id="RegistryEntriesVer" Guid="...">
    <RegistryKey Root="HKLM"
                 Key="Software\$(var.Manufacturer)\$(var.ProductName)"
          Action="createAndRemoveOnUninstall">
      <RegistryValue
          Type="string"
          Name="version"
          Value="$(var.ProductVersion)"
          KeyPath="yes"/>
    </RegistryKey>
  </Component>
</DirectoryRef>

<!-- To add shortcuts to the start menu to run and uninstall the program -->
<DirectoryRef Id="ApplicationProgramsFolder">
  <Component Id="ApplicationShortcut" Guid="...">
    <Shortcut Id="ApplicationStartMenuShortcut"
              Name="$(var.ProductName)"
              Description="..."
              Target="[SERVERLOCATION]$(var.Project.TargetFileName)"
              WorkingDirectory="SERVERLOCATION"/>
    <Shortcut Id="UninstallProduct"
                  Name="Uninstall $(var.ProductName)"
                  Description="..."
                  Target="[System64Folder]msiexec.exe"
                  Arguments="/x [ProductCode]"/>
    <RemoveFolder Id="SERVERLOCATION" On="uninstall"/>
    <RegistryValue
        Root="HKCU"
        Key="Software\$(var.Manufacturer)\$(var.ProductName)"
        Name="installed"
        Type="integer"
        Value="1"
        KeyPath="yes"/>
    </Component>
</DirectoryRef>

How can I fix this problem?

On a side note, the registry permissions are the same on the Windows XP and Windows 7 computers.

Answer 1

I have figured out why this is happening.

With the WiX installer being compiled on a x86 platform, Windows 7 picked it up as the 32-bit installer with 32-bit registry keys. Windows 7 64-bit handles 32-bit registry entries by doing just what I saw happening.

The program was still registered; it was just not in the 64-bit portion of the registry. Compile it under a x64 platform while making the necessary changes to make it for a 64-bit system (ProgramFileFolder become ProgramFiles64Folder, etc.), and it will put things in the right place.