[wix-users] Custom BA: Reading Registry Key Without User Read Permission

[Sean Hall]

The BA has to do everything in v3, there's no extensibility.

On Wed, Feb 17, 2021 at 12:42 PM Bryan Dam <bryand at recastsoftware.com>
wrote:

> Thanks Sean!
>
> > one from the utility exe during Detect
> How is the utility exe ran in that situation?  Just write code in the
> bootstrapper UI to call it, let Windows handle UAC based on its manifest,
> and somehow consume the output?  Or is there a way to have the Detect
> routine call it?  Or are you saying that the exe is part of the installer
> chain?
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: wix-users <wix-users-bounces at lists.wixtoolset.org> On Behalf Of
> Sean Hall via wix-users
> Sent: Wednesday, February 17, 2021 12:05 PM
> To: WiX Toolset Users Mailing List <wix-users at lists.wixtoolset.org>
> Cc: Sean Hall <r.sean.hall at gmail.com>
> Subject: Re: [wix-users] Custom BA: Reading Registry Key Without User Read
> Permission
>
> I believe that currently people will include a utility exe with their BA
> so that they can detect that kind of information. This has the drawback of
> the user getting two UAC prompts - one from the utility exe during Detect
> and one from the bundle when it elevates.
>
> In v4, there is a new concept of a bundle extension that can perform
> custom searches during Detect. I think it's a reasonable feature request
> for the extension to be able to declare that the search must run in the
> elevated engine, but no one's submitted that feature request yet.
>
> The handle for Detect, Elevate, and Apply is supposed to be the window
> handle for your UI, Windows Installer and various other APIs that get
> called require one.
>
> On Wed, Feb 17, 2021 at 10:37 AM Bryan Dam via wix-users <
> wix-users at lists.wixtoolset.org> wrote:
>
> > We have a custom BA to install an extension/plugin to a Microsoft
> > product.  We need to get some connection information about that
> > product from the user and ideally verify that the service account they
> > provide can access it.  Nothing too crazy there and that's all working
> just fine.
> > However, the idea was put forth that we should be able to
> > automatically detect a lot of that information.  We might have to
> > bounce around making some remote registry calls but the info is all
> > there.  I've got that working with a singular exception: some of the
> > registry keys do not have read only permissions for the Users group.
> > It's not my product, I'm not writing those keys, so there's nothing I
> > can do about that part.  If I right click and run the installer as
> > administrator it all works beautifully.  Any ideas on how to handle this?
> >
> > Auto-elevating the entire BA would obviously work but I've read those
> > threads and it seems that's just bad ju-ju even if I'm not modifying
> > anything.
> >
> > There's Engine.Elevate() but that intentionally doesn't elevate the UI
> > and I'm not exactly sure what handle I should be giving it.  Is it
> > possible to elevate the engine and then run elevated code using
> Detect/Plan callbacks?
> >
> > Or is this just a fools errand?
> >
> >        Thanks,
> >              Bryan
> >
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