This program might not have installed correctly.

I'm getting this error message when I reinstall my app in Windows Vista. It appears after I close the installer once it's finished.

"This program might not have installed correctly."

This only appears when I reinstall while it's already installed. It doesn't happen on the first install and if I uninstall and reinstall I don't get this message.

Is there anyway to figure out why this message is appearing? Vista doesn't give any information other than that message.

do you have requestexecutionlevel in your script?

We are getting the same error in our installer, but only on a reinstall, and yes, we have Admin as the required level. We do write to the registry for the ARP, but I guess because it is a reinstall, it is writing out the exact same thing.

Do we need to do registry shenanigans to solve this? Write some random string just so Windows doesn't stroke out?

hm, maybe add/update the "InstallDate" would work, at least if windows is hashing the data the hash should change

and if not, maybe ask over @ http://blogs.msdn.com/astebner/

Yeah, we were just thinking about doing a timestamp. I am going to try that today or tomorrow and see if it works.

Windows is very/too clever.. 😛

My "problem" was something like this: I had string "install" mentioned in the file properties Description field (it was actually a part of a bigger word: "installation"), Win7 found it *after* running the exe. The exe wasn't an (un)installer, so Win7 thought something was wrong. I removed the word and error didn't appear anymore. Was pretty hard to figure out..