[wix-users] Running the application (not the MSI) as administrator

[Rob Mensching]

%TMP%\ unless you need to keep them forever (for some reason?) then %LocalAppData%\<CompanyName>\.

Short replies here. Complete answers here: https://www.firegiant.com/services/

-----Original Message-----
From: Zac Harvey <zharvey at pobox.com> 
Sent: Tuesday, December 31, 2019 9:10 AM
To: Rob Mensching <rob at firegiant.com>; Zac Harvey via wix-users <wix-users at lists.wixtoolset.org>
Subject: Re: [wix-users] Running the application (not the MSI) as administrator

Thanks Rob, where do modern Windows apps typically write log files? Is there a standard? Generally speaking I try to *not* fight convention wherever I can ;-)

Thanks,
Zac

On Tue, Dec 31, 2019, at 11:59 AM, Rob Mensching wrote:
> Put your log file somewhere else. Trying to write to the application 
> folder is anti-security since ~2006.
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: wix-users <wix-users-bounces at lists.wixtoolset.org> On Behalf Of 
> Zac Harvey via wix-users
> Sent: Tuesday, December 31, 2019 8:51 AM
> To: wix-users at lists.wixtoolset.org
> Cc: Zac Harvey <zharvey at pobox.com>
> Subject: [wix-users] Running the application (not the MSI) as 
> administrator
> 
> I am very pleased (so thank you!) with how easy WiX 3.11.2 has been to 
> setup and use. I am a Mac/Linux developer that had a rare project crop 
> up that required me to write a Windows application and MSI installer, 
> and WiX has been a joy to work with thus far.
> 
> I have my MSI installed correctly installing my application under 
> C:\Program Files (x86)\My App. And when it starts up it works 
> perfectly, *except* one small item:
> 
> The app *should* be created a log file in that same directory (so 
> C:\Program Files (x86)\My App\my-app.log). I noticed that although my 
> app starts up and runs just fine (from the end user's perspective), 
> the log file is not created.
> 
> So I right-clicked the EXE (C:\Program Files (x86)\My App\my-app.exe) 
> and flagged it to *Run as administrator*, and that seemed to solve the 
> problem. Now, when the app starts up, the log file is created and is 
> written to as expected; all is well.
> 
> Its not a *huge* inconvenience to setting this "Run as administrator" 
> flag manually, but ideally, the MSI installer would handle this for me. 
> I came across this article:
> 
> https://stackoverflow.com/a/6124767/5235665
> 
> ...but I think that is for making the MSI installer itself run as the 
> administrator, and I'm not entirely sure thats what I want (is it?).
> Again, the MSI runs great, its just that at start time, my *app* (not 
> the installer) needs to run as the admin.
> 
> Can anyone weigh in as to what I need to do (specifically which 
> commands added to which file) to get my (MSI-installed) app running as 
> administrator?
> 
> Thanks for such a great tool, and Happy New Year!
> 
> Best,
> Zac
> 
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