CODEWITHSUNDEEP
wixwindows-installer
Pablo Fernandez
Pablo Fernandez

Reputation: 287400

Should the installed entry in the registry be in the Microsoft folder?

When adding a shortcut to an installer created with Wix, according to How To: Create a Shortcut on the Start Menu, you need to add a registry value with like this:

<RegistryValue Root="HKCU" Key="Software\Microsoft\MyApplicationName" Name="installed" Type="integer" Value="1" KeyPath="yes"/>

Should that value really be inside of Software\Microsoft? In many cases in the Microsoft world I'm seeing the vendor used as the scope so I'm wondering if it shouldn't really be Software\MyVendorName\MyApplicationName.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 63

Answers (1)

Stein &#197;smul
Stein &#197;smul

Reputation: 42126

I would definitely write to my own location as indicated by others:

  • HKCU\Software\MyVendorName\MyApplicationName
  • HKLM\Software\MyVendorName\MyApplicationName

Ideally your application should not write anywhere else in the registry - except beneath these two parent locations. You "own" these two registry locations - and nowhere else. You shouldn't write anywhere else - and certainly not under the Microsoft key. I believe that is a "generic sample".

The exception is when you need to register certain files (or components) - for example COM files whose registration go into HKLM\SOFTWARE\Classes and HKCU\SOFTWARE\Classes. These per machine and per-user locations are merged to produce HKCR (HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT). COM registration can also be isolated, in which case you use manifest files - then the registry is not involved at all. WiX features special COM-related elements that will populate the registry for you via standard MSI mechanisms - the heat.exe tool for harvesting COM registration (among other things) will auto-generate these elements for you and your compiled MSI will have several MSI tables keeping the COM registration information (ProgId, Class, TypeLib, etc...).

UPDATE: Not to compliate things too much, but an MSI can be installed per-user or per-machine based on the values of ALLUSERS and MSIINSTALLPERUSER properties. If you have populated the proper COM tables in the MSI the COM server will be registered per-machine or per-user accordingly.

And there are other cases where installation processes make changes elsewhere in the registry if you install your package. For example when you install drivers, plug-ins, fonts, COM+, COM Interop, file extensions, etc... Your registration in these cases should generally go through APIs that take care of registering your components and you should not poke around i the registry yourself in most cases. A lot of such registration is handled by MSI if you do it right - or built-in constructs in third party tools used to make MSI files.

Upvotes: 1

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