Launch condition failing: Excel Min Ver 2003-User has 2010

[jwest]

I'm currently using AI 9.0.1

My x86 installer is using a launch condition that appears to be failing on one of my user's machines.

The launch condition is "Installed Office Application -> Microsoft Excel, Minimum Version 2003"

When the user launches the installer bootstrapper they receive the following error message:

XXX cannot be installed on systems without Microsoft Excel 2003 or higher, where XXX is my application's name.

The user is running Win 7x64. He downloaded, installed and registered MS Office Home 2010 (x86) from the Microsoft website.

It's possible that the user is launching a slightly older version of my installer created with AI 8.x as I only recently upgraded to 9.0.1.

The installer has worked many thousands of times on a variety of machines ( it was released last summer) and so I'm hoping there is something specific to this user's machine that may be causing the problem.

Does anyone know what my be wrong?

Thanks!

[Bogdan]

Since the packager worked for all the other users the chances are that the problem is related to the user's machine.

The launch conditions use registry searches to see what is installed. For Excel 2003 this registry is looked "SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Excel\InstallRoot\Path". You can ask
the user to check it manually to see if it is found on his machine.

Regards,
Bogdan

[jwest]

Will do. Thanks.

[jwest]

Shouldn't Excel 11 be located in HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office\11.0\Excel\InstallRoot\Path on a Winx64 machine?

Also, if the user has Excel 2010, then wouldn't the only sub-key underneath Microsoft\Office\11.0 be "common"?

On my machine running Winx64 and Excel 2010 x64, HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office looks like this:

Screenshot

30-04-2012 4-38-29 PM.png (54.65 KiB) Viewed 44974 times

[jwest]

I have sent the user a diagnostic program to dump the contents of the various registry sections relating to Excel. I'll report back here when I get the results. Hopefully it will lead to a clue as to why the built-in launch condition isn't picking up on the fact that Excel 2010 is installed on the user's machine. My spidey senses tell me that there may be some subtle differences in how the registry is setup between versions of Office installed from a CD versus the new fangled try and buy ones that you can download from the MS site using their click to run (I think that's what it's called) feature.

[jwest]

I'm starting to think that they may have tried to install the 64-bit version of our software on a machine with 32-bit Office. I have sent the user a message asking them to confirm this given that his registry looks pretty straightforward. I'll wait to hear back from the user so I don't need a response from the AI folks.

Here's what the user's Office x86 registry looks like:

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office(Keys Only, 4 levels)=
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office\14.0]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office\14.0\Common]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office\14.0\Common\InstallRoot]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office\14.0\CVH]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office\14.0\CVH\Click2runExcel]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office\14.0\CVH\Click2runOneNote]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office\14.0\CVH\Click2runOneNoteProxy]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office\14.0\CVH\Click2runOWSSuppProxies]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office\14.0\CVH\Click2runPowerPoint]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office\14.0\CVH\Click2runWord]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office\14.0\CVH\Connect]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office\14.0\CVH\{90140011-0061-0409-0000-0000000FF1CE}]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office\14.0\CVHSettings]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office\14.0\CVHSettings\{90140011-0061-0409-0000-0000000FF1CE}]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office\Common]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office\Common\Smart Tag]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office\Common\Smart Tag\Actions]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office\Common\Smart Tag\Recognizers]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office\Delivery]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office\Delivery\SourceEngine]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office\Delivery\SourceEngine\Downloads]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office\Delivery\SourceEngine\Settings]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office\Excel]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office\Excel\AddIns]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office\Excel\AddIns\PXCOfficeAddin4.Addin]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office\Outlook]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office\Outlook\Addins]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office\Outlook\Addins\Search.OutlookToolbar]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office\PowerPoint]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office\PowerPoint\AddIns]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office\PowerPoint\AddIns\PXCOfficeAddin4.Addin]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office\Publisher]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office\Publisher\AddIns]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office\Publisher\AddIns\PXCOfficeAddin4.Addin]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office\Word]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office\Word\AddIns]
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Office\Word\AddIns\PXCOfficeAddin4.Addin]

[jwest]

The user has indicated to me that he was trying to install the x86 / 32-bit version of our software and so the original question remains: Why is the launch condition (Min Excel version = 2003) failing to detect that the user has Office 14 (Excel 2010) installed?

Thanks.

[mihai.petcu]

Hello,

I tested this with the following specifications and everything worked correctly:
- Advanced Installer 9.0.1 with launch condition set for min. Excel 2003
- Windows 7 64-bit with Office 2010 32-bit installed

capture.jpg (37.89 KiB) Viewed 44953 times

You indicated this behavior was caused by a package built with an older version of Advanced Installer. There was a somewhat related bug regarding this debated in the Launch condition reverts to excel 2010 thread.

This bug was that the launch condition did not search the 64-bit locations for Office 2010.

All the best,
Mihai

[jwest]

Thanks. I have sent the user a fresh build using the latest version of AI. Fingers crossed.

[jwest]

I believe I have discovered what it going on. I asked about this weird behaviour in the Excel developers forum over at MSDN and was told that Office 2010 can be downloaded as a try and then buy package from the MS website. Users are encouraged to use the new MS Click To Run (CTR) technology that installs Office 2010 in a virtual environment so that it can be installed side-by-side with an existing (earlier) version of Office. In fact, the majority of users who download the try / buy version will likely install using CTR as MS have burried the details of how to install it as a regular msi based installation.

On a CTR install of Office 2010, the following registry key is NOT created:

SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Office\14.0\Excel\InstallRoot\Path

Instead, we are supposed to check if there is a virtual installation by looking for the following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Office\14.0\Common\InstallRoot\Virtual\VirtualExcel

I imagine that it will be the following for Office 2012:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Office\15.0\Common\InstallRoot\Virtual\VirtualExcel

BTW: For Outlook, the key is:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Office\14.0\Common\InstallRoot\Virtual\VirtualOutlook

I imagine the same goes for the other components of Office like Word and PP.

Hopefully you'll be able to address this in a future release of AI as it seems like this will be a popular way of installing Office in the future.

The folks at MSDN pointed me to this link about detecting if Outlook was installed virtually:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff522355.aspx

To check whether Outlook was delivered by Click-to-Run on a client computer

Verify whether the VirtualOutlook key exists in the following location in the Windows registry:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Office\14.0\Common\InstallRoot\Virtual\VirtualOutlook

The VirtualOutlook key is a REG_SZ value that contains the culture tag of the installed product language, such as "en-us".