WiX installer should always run as administrator

Question

I developed a custom installer with WiX for a .NET WPF application. It works fine if I right-click and run as administrator, however when running without, some components fa

Answer 1

For me I was supposed to run a registry command to delete a system environment variable via the CustomAction WiX element, which required administrator privileges.

Using CustomAction → Impersonate="no" worked for me as mentioned in post https://stackoverflow.com/a/8657472/3205679.

WiX Custom Action code:

<CustomAction Id = "Uninstall_MYSYSENV"
              Directory  = "INSTALLFOLDER"
              ExeCommand = 'cmd.exe /c &quot;reg delete       "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Session    Manager\Environment" /v MYSYSENV /f&quot;'
              Execute    = "deferred"
              Impersonate= "no"
              Return     = "asyncNoWait"
              />

<InstallExecuteSequence>
      <Custom Action="Uninstall_MYSYSENV"
              After="InstallInitialize">Installed AND NOT UPGRADINGPRODUCTCODE</Custom>
</InstallExecuteSequence>

Answer 2

Add this to your package element

<Property Id="ALLUSERS" Value="1" />    <!--equals to install="permachine" at package element but this element depricated -->
<Property Id="MSIUSEREALADMINDETECTION" Value="1" /> 

<Condition Message="Please Run as Administrator.">
      Privileged
</Condition>

Then creating a simple sfx archive file for msi file with Winrar and these options:

• Setup tab > Run after execution input: your msi file name

• Advanced tab > Mark Request Administrative access option checkbox

Answer 3

I think if you just add

<Property Id="MSIUSEREALADMINDETECTION" Value="1" />

it should solve the problem. Let me know if not and I can do some more checking.