Unable to register a package when PermittedGroups is set

[capeless]

I’m having a problem using thinreg.exe to register a packaged application that has the PermittedGroups setting. If the PermittedGroups option is set on a package, a user in that group can run the package fine, but if that same user tries to register the app with thinreg.exe it does nothing. If the /a or /allusers parameter is used on thinreg.exe than it registers, but to the Default/All Users profile, and requires elevated privileges. If I try using an MSI, the results are the same. I am hoping to avoid using the /allusers switch to avoid the UAC prompt on Windows Vista and Windows 7, as well as keep it only in authorized user’s profiles.

Did I misunderstand how thinreg.exe and PermittedGroups work? Or, is there something I’m overlooking? I would greatly appreciate any help or suggestions. Thanks.

[muriwai]

Could you provide the step-by-step instructions for us to reproduce the issue in house, with any simple application that we can easily download from the Internet? Thank you!

[muriwai]

What version of ThinApp are you using?

[capeless]

First, let me say thank you for your intrest.

What version of ThinApp are you using?

I'm using ThinApp 4.5.0-238809.

Could you provide the step-by-step instructions for us to reproduce the issue in house, with any simple application that we can easily download from the Internet? Thank you!

To create the package, I:

1. Use a clean install of Windows XP SP2 with all the latest Security patches from Microsoft on a VM in Workstation 7.1.0-26104.

2. Did the prescan.

3. Installed the application I wanted to capture.

4. Did the postscan.

5. Edited the package.ini and changed the PermittedGroups line to include a security group in our domain.

6. Move the caputre to a computer on the domain.

7. Build.

8. Attempt to thinreg and get the results I mentioned above.

I was originally trying to do DameWare NT Utilites, but I have also had the same results when I tested with Mozilla Firefox 3.6.

Again, thanks for any help you can offer.

[muriwai]

Thank you for the reporting the issue. Unfortunately, I cannot offer a solution at this stage. I however logged an internal bug report, and one of our engineers will attend to it. If you need an urgent solution, please submit a support request.

Thank you.

Best regards,

muriwai

[Pankaj11]

Hi capeless,

I tried to reproduce this problem at my end, and haven't been able to. I followed the steps below:

1. I tested on both XP and Win7, so added Xp and Win7 machines to my test domain.

3. Logged into the machine as a non admin domain user (this user belongs to the "Domain Users" group).

4. Installed ThinApp on the machine (had to do a RunAs, as I was logged in as non admin user).

5. Copied the firefox project, added the "Domain Users" group to the PermittedGroups entry in package.ini, rebuild the package.

6. Ran Thinreg, and it happneded successfully on the machine(can see the shortcuts and add remove program entries).

I tried this on both XP sp2 and Win7, and with ThinApp 4.5 and the latest ThinApp internal build, both ran successfully. Can you please let me know if I am missing something here, I am just trying to understand the difference between your and my steps and environment, so that I can replicate the issue in house and fix it.

Thanks & regards

Pankaj

[capeless]

Thank you for your time and effort.

I was afraid that the problem I'm experiencing is caused more by our Active Directory and not so much by anything with ThinApp. Your attempt and everything else tells me that it should work, but I've been unsuccessful. The package seems to build fine and work correctly only allowing permitted users to run it. It almost seems as if ThinReg.exe is having a problem with determining if the user is permitted and dosen't register the package's shortcuts, associations, and "Add/Remove Programs" entry.

I wouldn't even know where to start to troubleshoot our AD. Is there a switch or option in ThinReg.exe to get a debug or logging output to determine what it is or isn't doing and why?

If nothing else, I will put in a support request when I can find more time to devote to it.

Thank you again for taking the time.

[admin]

One last thing, are you on the domain when you build the package? If so have you tried editing the permission from the GUI instead of the package.ini?

[muriwai]

Are you saying that when you run ThinReg, it produces no messages, even when it doesn't actually register the package?

[capeless]

One last thing, are you on the domain when you build the package? If so have you tried editing the permission from the GUI instead of the package.ini?

Yes, I've tried adding a group with the GUI when I capture the application as well. As far as I could tell it just edited the line in package.ini. I would build on a machine on the domain otherwise the build would fail with an error saying it could not resolve the group.

[capeless]

Are you saying that when you run ThinReg, it produces no messages, even when it doesn't actually register the package?

Correct. I get no messages.