In Vista, final step of installation launches YOU!!

I learnt from NagarSoft that the security conscious Vista doesn't like the idea of an installer that has a 'Run Program Immediately After Installation' step at the end.

This is because "Any processes Setup spawns will inherit the same privileges as Setup" (from Inno Setup Knowledge Base, FAQ Vista)

Okay well this is sad.

An A+ For Security! But An F for Usability!

(continues...)

I mean I get the technical side of it: the setup process needs to have elevated privileges to perform the installation. But you don't want the application itself to have those privileges.

But look at the human side of it: you download something off the internet, and install it. You then have to go hunting around before running it.

That's sad.

The average attention span is now resting at around 5 milliseconds. If you can't find a way to launch the application at the end of installation a lot of users are simply never going to get around to using the software they've installed.

It ought to be easy for developers to provide the features users use.

Actually, looking at the 'technical' side again, this is not just a problem for installation software. It's a common siutation. Say I've written a code editor, and I want to allow the user to launch other tools from this code editor (e.g. 'Preview in Mozilla'). The tools won't be fully trusted by the code editor. When I launch such a process, I'll want to give it the lowest privileges I can, regardless of whether or not I'm an administrator.

I'm basing my opinion on an article at TweakUAC that says:

"Microsoft has... for some reason... not offered a similarly easy way of start[ing] a non-elevated process from an elevated one."

That article provides a Visual Studio 2005 project that shows how an administrative process can launch a process as a standard user. I haven't tried it myself: but it don't look easy.

(All found thanks to the daily grind)

See also Russian Reversal Next → ← Previous

My book "Choose Your First Product" is available now.

It gives you 4 easy steps to find and validate a humble product idea.

Learn more.