MSI, IE and UseCoInstall

[Jim Watts]

Hi,

One of our suppliers software requires that an ActiveX control be installed
onto systems when visiting the applications web page. As all of our systems
are locked down, and users are members of the USERS group only this
obviously doesnt work. I've been trying to learn about the IE 'UseCoInstall'
system (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;241163)
which should allow us to use Active Directory application publshing to
install the control with elevated privs when a user visits the page.

Does anybody have further information on this, or examples of web pages and
controls etc, as i cannot get it to work as i dont know whats supposed to be
in the HTML code? Has anybody ever actually used it, as available
information is very limited?

Many thanks
--
Jim Watts, MCSA, MCSE on Windows 2000
Technology Consultant
Directories, Authentication and Border Security
Information Systems Services
University of Southampton

 

[Andreas Magnusson]

Well, I've actually managed to create an installation useable by "Users".
I'm using a trick that might not be perfect, but I realised that there
wasn't much I could do about it.
I realised that the one thing that creates the problem is that an
installation of an ActiveX writes all the information directly to the
specific places in the registery, except for the TypeLib information.
All the other information is written into HKCU if they don't have rights to
write into HKLM.
My solution was to extract the TypeLib information into registry keys that
write into either HKCU or HKLM depending on rights (or really ALLUSERS).
This creates a little problem if more than one user installs, but we had to
take the approach that our customers with locked down environments where
more important than those problems.

This means that the "usual way" with a signed cab-file works for us.

Hope it helps,
/Andreas