Could you tell me please. I wrote an application that uses 'Settings.ini' to save settings. The application is installed using InnoSetup. If there are several user accounts and the application is installed in one of them, so, if I try to run the application from another account I get error "Unable to write to....". That is, if run from another account, the application has no rights to write to the settings file. I don't know what happens in Windows XP, but that's the way application behaves in Windows 7.
So could you tell me please, is there something I should define in my application to make it work for multiple users or it should be changed during the installation, somewhere in InnoSetup parameters?
Thank you.
You should - install the very program into Program Files or some other common folder - folder that any user have rights to read and run, but not to write or delete. USually installers would allow to override the folder, but the rule remains: every user should have non-destructive rights (read and execute) and none - destructive (delete, overwrite)
That means your installer should request Admin rights and UAC Elevation - ask InnoSetup forum or documentation how to do it. That may deal with including manifests resources into installer. It is normal when a regular user runs the installer and installer then asks for another username and password with admin rights.
The settings and other user-unique data should be saved into special per-user data folders. Usually that is AppLocal folder under user profile. However it is task for your application rather than the installer. Installer may create global settings templates, that the application would just copy into user-local settings on the 1st run under given user, or would override by user-local settings if cascading settings storage is implemented.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/apps/hh465094.aspx
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/patricka/archive/2010/03/18/where-should-i-store-my-data-and-configuration-files-if-i-target-multiple-os-versions.aspx
Run command prompt, issue set command - and u would see all needed paths as environment variables wit hnames like AppPath, LocalAppPath and UserProfile
http://greatis.com/delphicb/tips/lib/systemifo-envstrings.html
http://www.delphidabbler.com/articles?article=6
Related
I have an "Advanced Installer" project that I am trying to use to install my "TopShelf" windows service that I have built.
I found the spot in Advanced Installer to grant permissions to the installation folder, but I don't see a way to grant permissions to the "Local System" account.
Manually, this is done by going to the security option in the properties of the folder and adding a user with the same name as the computer name but ending with a $. For Example MyNiceComputer$. (Oh, and you have to select the "Computers" option in the types area.)
But there is no way to do all this in Advanced Installer. If I do make one like MyNiceComputer$, it just makes an empty entry in the security tab. (No Permissions on it, even though I setup for full control.)
Has anyone ever needed to do this with Advanced Installer?
Additional Details:
I am installing an app that runs as a windows service. (It is a console app built with TopShelf).
Our company policy is to install all our applications into a folder that looks like this:
C:\OurCompanyApps\MyApp
When I create the installer, it runs fine, but then I when I start up the Windows Service, I get the following error:
Windows could not start the MyApp service on Local Computer
Error 5: Access is denied.
But when I grant access to Local System (by giving Full Control rights to myNiceComputer$ on the MyApp folder), then this error goes away and the app runs fine. From what I read, this is because the application is running as Local System.
It seems odd that it needs full control but it does not work without it. (But as far as I can see, the contents of the folder are un-altered).
#Bogdan Mitrache seems to indicate that granting permissions to Local System is not possible via Advanced Installer. This is good to know (so I don't waste more time looking). I will probably ask my System Admins for a dedicated system account to run my service as. Not ideal, but it will serve as a work around.
So, in one of my "less finer" moments of debugging, I mixed up two different things.
There was also a file missing, (my config file). I restored that and changed the permissions at the same time. But then I forgot to go back and verify which one was the actual fix. (I know, not good debugging.)
So, the Access is denied error was due to a missing file.
How do I get a folder to appear in the browser after adding it to \pentaho-solutions in Pentaho 5.0.1 CE. The documentation I read does not seem to work with this new version.
1. Create a new directory in /pentaho/server/biserver-ee/pentaho-solutions/.
Use underscores instead of spaces in the solution directory name. Ensure that the directory has the appropriate user
and group ownership to be writable from the BI Platform.
2. Using an XML-aware text editor (or Design Studio), create a file named index.xmlin your new solution directory.
3. Copy the following text into the index.xml file, changing the content accordingly:
***<index>
<name>Example Solution</name>
<description>This solution contains examples I created while learning to
work with action sequences.</description>
<icon></icon>
<visible>true</visible>
<display-type>icons</display-type>
</index>***
4. Save the file and close the text editor.
5. Log into the Pentaho User Console as an administrator.
6. Refresh the solution repository cache by going to the Toolsmenu, then selecting the Refreshsubmenu, then
clicking on Repository Cache.
You now have a new solution directory. It will show up in all file dialogues in the Pentaho User Console as well as the
Solution Browser in the left pane.
Every time you add or edit an action sequence to your solution directory, you must refresh the repository cache as
explained above. Each user currently logged into the Pentaho User Console must also refresh their session cache; this
is best done by re-logging into the Pentaho User Console.
I am using Pentaho design studio to develop an xaction sequence script. I followed this procedure:
1. In Design Studio, go to the Filemenu, then select New, and click on Other...in the sub-menu.
The Newwindow will appear.
2. In the Newwindow, click the triangle next to Pentaho, select New Action Sequence Wizard, then click Next.
3. In the File namefield, type hello_world.xaction.
4. Select Hello Worldfrom the Templatedrop-down box, then click Finish.
The wizard will generate the new file and bring you back to the workbench.
5. Click on HelloWorldComponentin the Process Actionssection on the left.
The right side of the screen will change to show the options available for this action: Nameand Message. The
Name field controls the name of the component in the Process Actions list on the left; it doesn't do anything else of
note. The Message field contains the text that will appear on the screen when the action sequence is run. It is prepopulated with %quote, which is a token that represents a quote message in a nonexistent properties file. Pentaho
used to provide properties files for each example, but they have been removed from the standard Pentaho Business
Analytics distribution.
6. Replace the %quotewith a sufficiently inspiring message.
Alternatively, you could create a hello_world.propertiesfile and populate it with the appropriate messages and
tokens, but that has no advantage unless you intend to internationalize this action sequence.
7. Save the file.
You now have a working action sequence that prints a short text message: "Hello, World." plus whatever you typed into
the Message field. The first part of the message is determined by a message bundle packaged with the Pentaho Web
application archive.
To test the action sequence, use the Test tab if you are on Windows or OS X, or log into the Pentaho User Console and
run it from the Solution Browser.
Running the sample xaction fails with
Sorry. We really did try.
Something went wrong. Please try again
or contact your administrator.
I figure this is because pentaho cannot locate the xaction file as specified in the file path when I generate the url from within design studio. The folder I created within the solution directory does not appear in the browser directory list despite refreshing the cache. Any help?
With Version 5 the files and folders are no longer stored in "/pentaho/server/biserver-ee/pentaho-solutions/..."
It is stored now in a jackrabbit repository.
You can create folders and upload files in the user console.
I did mistake after starting biserver 5.2. Unexpectedly i deleted Public folder after configuring to jackrabbit. Now how do i create the folder so that i can see Public and Home Folders.
Sorry for getting back to this question some time later, just in case someone searches something related to Pentaho repositories management with no success, i hope this information can help.
Just to make things more clear, i'm using version 5.2.x and i'm supposing you want to create a new folder on the root directory of Browse Files screen, something that is not allowed on Pentaho5 CE Web Console.
The answers about repository management based on JackRabbit are correct, so the old way we used to configure new "solutions" folders doesn't work anymore. From version 5 on, Pentaho exposes an interesting REST api that allows you doing things not allowed in web console.
For instance, for creating a folder in root directory you should create a http REST PUT request against Pentaho Server (using tools like curl or if you appreciate Google Chrome, something like Advanced Rest Client, etc.) using the following URL:
http://localhost:8080/pentaho/api/repo/dirs/:new_directory_name?userid=admin&password=password
Pentaho repository directory REST api is documented here:
http://javadoc.pentaho.com/bi-platform500/webservice500/resource_DirectoryResource.html
It's worthy to spend some time reading REST API the documentation.
Im doing a little research into installers, and right now at my company we are having some issues deploying from jenkins using click once. We have a test certificate(these programs are all internal) and for some reason are having some issues with the certifcate being incompatiable with certain msbuilds/.net frameworks. So im looking into alternatives.
But in that i want to keep the same architecture. How it works right now is someone clicks on a button in our task bar, clicks on the application they want, and then click once installs the updates(or installs) without further user input and starts the application. Ive heard a lot of good things about NSIS.
So far ive only seen generic application installers like you expect when you download anything from the internet. Could I do something like i described above using NSIS?
A very basic no interaction installer might look like this:
Name foo
OutFile foo_setup.exe
AutoCloseWindow true
RequestExecutionLevel user
InstallDir "$LocalAppData\Programs\MyApp"
Page InstFiles
Section
SetOutPath "$InstDir"
WriteUninstaller "$InstDir\uninst.exe"
; TODO: Add registry entry for Add/Remove Programs
File "MyApp.exe"
File "Data.xml" ; Support files etc
Exec '"$InstDir\MyApp.exe" -firstrun "c:\some path\file.ext"'
SectionEnd
Section Uninstall
Delete "$InstDir\MyApp.exe"
Delete "$InstDir\Data.xml"
Delete "$InstDir\uninst.exe"
RMDir "$InstDir"
SectionEnd
If you want to install for all users in %ProgramFiles% you can run into issues with Exec because the app can end up running as the wrong user if a non-administrator used some other account in the UAC dialog.
I need to update my application from a central server.
The application checks always if it is a correct version, against the server installation.
So when it is not, I need it to update itself.
So how can I copy the EXE if it is running? What solution do I have?
I rename the current running exe to MyTempExe.exe, copy the new exe to the correct location (request elevated privileges if necessary) and then run a separate app to restart the main app. On start up I check for MyTempExe.exe delete it if it's there.
The reason I use a separate app for the restart is I don't have a set time frame for the app to close down and need to wait for it to finish whatever it's doing, on shutdown it writes information to disk about its current state that the updated app will use to resume where the old one left off.
I don't know if it's the best solution but it's the one I use.
As you can see by all the answers there is no set way to do this, so I thought I would add the way we have successfully done this.
We never run an application directly from the network.
We run the application from the local machine and have it copy from the network on startup.
We do this using an application launcher. It downloads an XML file that contains CRC and Version Resource Values for the application files. The XML File is created during the deployment process, in a FinalBuilder Script.
The application then compares the XML File to local content, and copies down needed files. Finally we then launch the application in question. This has worked well for deploying an application that serves around 300 local users. Recently we switch from a file copy to an HTTP download as we found problems with remote user disconnecting drives.
We still still build installations (With Innosetup) to get the basic required files deployed.
Package your app with an installer such as Inno. Download and execute the installer. Have the installer search for and kill your app, or instruct the user to close it. The setup will replace your .exe, and if the app can't be killed or the user is non-cooperative, it'll issue a re-start notice.
Download new EXE to TEMP
Create Batch from EXE, content:
taskkill /PID %process id of running EXE%
copy %new EXE% %running EXE%
%EXE%
all values in %...% are placeholders
execute batch from the running EXE
delete batch
I use TMS TWebUpdate myself, for software updates. The advantage is that there a bunch of extra actions you can put into the script, if you need anything other than plain EXE updates.
I have two components at work the application executable itself and a web-service (SOAP) which provides version details and file downloads.
The application calls a method on the SOAP service to ask for the number of files in the project (project is identified by using the application.exename usually).
The soap service gets its info from an INI file, which has entries like:
[ProjectName]
NumberOfFiles=2
File1=myapp.exe;1.0.0.1
File2=mydll.dll;1.0.0.2
You just update this file at the same time as uploading your new files.
The process of updating the application this:
Get number of files available on the web service
For each file, the application asks for the name and version number from the SOAP server.
The application compares this information to its own version info and decides if the file needs updating, building a local list of files that need updating.
For each file that needs updating the application downloads the file to filename.ext.new
Finally, the application renames all filename.ext to filename.ext.old and renames filename.ext.new to filename.ext and then restarts itself. (No real need for an external app to restart your own program).
Note 1, that you may have to ask for elevation to replace files, depending on where you install your files.
Note 2: be kind to your users, think carefully before you force updates on users.
Note 3: You cannot delete a running exe, but you can rename it and then restart the new version.
Edit===
For some reference data files which cannot contain version information resources, you can have entires like File99=MyDataFile;1.1.2011 the 3 elements to the version number indicates to the client that it should check against the file date/stamp.
You could have a separate update executable whose task is to check the server version, download an updated executable if necessary, and then run the local executable.
Or you could have one executable running in two different modes: 1. on startup, check for an update, if there is one, download the executable to a download directory, run it and quit.
2. The new executable would check if it's running from the installation directory, if not, it would copy itself there, overwriting the old version, start the copy from there, and quit.
My way is the other way round: If a new version is online, promt the user to update. If he want's to (or is forced to...) I end the app and start a new exe (updater). this updater loads the update and replaces the old exe (not running). then it starts the new exe. ready. (You can of course replace other files too.) BUT: Using an Installer like InnoSetup gives you more possibilities and doesn't mix up with the regular uninstaller, so it is really better...
You can do this without running another application. Push the updates to the client from the server while running, storing in a temporary directory on the client. When you want to upgrade move all your running files to another temporary directory, move the new files into the original application directory, and just restart the application using the standard executable name on shutdown.
I upgrade client applications running on unattended machines automatically this way.
Can someone tell me how to set file permissions in Delphi 2006? I am using TINIFile.Create to create INI files in my application. The problem is that if I create the file while logged onto Windows as an administrator and then try to run the application as just a standard user and overwrite the INI file, I do not have permission to do so. I put the file in the AllUsers\ApplicationData\MyProduct folder. I'd like to set the permissions to this folder. I need AllUsers to have Full permissions to the MyProduct folder. If its possible to do this through a WindowsAPI that'd be great because I also need to do this in C++ and C#. I'd really appreciate any help. Thanks!
Although you can do all sorts of permission changes with the right code in Delphi (as admin) a better application structure is to NOT assume that your App has any privileges (you say you want it to run in user mode). Instead, use the installer that will install your App (e.g Inno Setup) to copy a suitable Ini file template into your required data folder. You can specify the permissions that you want using "Permissions: user-modify" on the file copy line.
You can use JEDI library for this. Here is a blog "Setting file security with JWSCL" from posted by Christian Wimmer
The correct answer on "how to do that" is "don't do it at all".
If you set "allow to write for anyone" for your MyProduct folder or ini-file - this will be violating security. Because now any user can affect other users - this is not what they should be allowed to do.
Any user must affect only his world. He should not affect worlds of other users. This power is reserved for administrators.
Why is this bad? Obsiosly.
That's why the correct way will be approx. like this:
Installer of your application MAY put an ini-file into AllUsers folder, but DO NOT alter file's permissions. This file will be default read-only options.
Your application should read settings from AllUsers folder and from current user folder. If it needs to save settings - it should write to user folder, not AllUsers. That way, each user will have their own preferences/settings.
If you want that "someone powerfull" should have ability to enforce settings for all users - he should be an administrator. He can edit file in AllUsers, thus affecting settings of all users.
Note, that you also need to decide, which setting have higher priority (global or local). So, you can have both at same time: (a) local settings for each user and (b) ability to enforce/override user's settings.
Most probably you create your ini file into the application folder, don't you? You should avoid such practice. Instead create ini files into users\YourUser\AppData\Roaming\YourProduct.
I am having a similar problem.
Since you need to do this also in other environments I have a suggestion for you.
Use an external installer to install your application. It has many benefits and one of them is that it will configure for you a File\Directory\Registry permissions during the installation. Of course you would have to run the installation on administrative account but then your users will have the permissions required by your application.
I can recommend you a great installer which is called Inno Setup.