Software Deployment

If you set one of these files that lives in %appdata% as a keyfile, Windows Installer will trigger a repair of the application if the file does not exist- thereby installing the missing file. It is best to place these files in their own feature first to avoid reinstallation of the entire package each time (repair activity like this works at the feature level- when repackaging everything is often dumped into a single feature.)

Hope this helps!

Ar eyou installing the files to "Windows\Profiles\All Users\Application Data" from installation expert view?

This should install it for All users rather than just the user performing the install.. Don't use the "Profiles\Application Data" folder

The directory table will use "CommonAppDataFolder" rather than "LocalAppDataFolder"

Steve.

I agree with Bob here but I think this depends on the deployment method.

If %appdata% is part of a user profile that is "redirected" to a network share or DFS link then you have a problem because you will have to make the app user deployed in order to write to the user profile.....set it to install at login and let it write to the user profile itself.

If the app is workstation deployed then put the data in C:\Documents And Settings\Allusers and it will populate to the user profile on bootup for all users of that workstation.

Also set the ALLUSERS Property to equal 1. This will ensure that profile specific entries will be placed in ALLUSERS.

If you place the "userdata" and registry entries in a component above the main install.....ie "Complete" then only the user data wilol be required to to be dropped down the pipe to the user as they start the app and save heaps of time.

this is actually highlighted when you run validation.

items in %appdata% should have an HKCU keypath.