Startup applications per-user and Windows Installer

Question

I have an application that is installed per-machine (since it uses a service). One part of the application is a system tray application that allows the logged-in user to monitor the service operations. I'm trying to figure out how to best install this monitor application.

Each individual user should be allowed to configure whether or not he/she wants to run the monitor application at login. This means that the HKLM/Software/Microsoft/Windows/Run key is out - this only allows configuration for all users.

There is of course the corresponding HKCU-key, however if one simply installs to this key, it will only be for the user that installs the application.

The SO question http://stackoverflow.com/questions/882123/launch-app-on-startup-for-all-users-but-also-allow-per-user-setting-windows refers to the technique of simply having a user-configurable regkey or similar that is checked by the startup-application on to determine whether or not to run. But this means that the application has to start in order to check the value and I would prefer not to bloat the user's startup if I can avoid it. The benefit of this approach is that it is possible to remove the regkey on uninstall.

Another way to accomplish the installation part may be to use Active Setup to create the HKCU regkey on login, this is however undocumented and it seems to me that there is no easy way to uninstall the regkey if the application is uninstalled? I would assume that leaving registry values under the Run key for HKCU might create problems for users after uninstallation.

Is there a standard way to handle per-user startup applications using Windows Installer? Especially with regard to how to uninstall these later on?

Answer 1

A bit lowtech possibly, but can't you just add a shortcut to the user's startup folder (Start menu/Programs/Startup)?

Answer 2

I guess you would use the HKLM/Software/Microsoft/Windows/Run in this case. The feature to run the monitor application at startup or not really belongs to the monitor application and not the installer. At log-on the monitor application can detect if this is the first time that the monitor application has been run and present the user with an option to always run the monitor application on start up or not.

Answer 3

Looks to me like you're close to answering your own question. I think you may just need to divide up the responsibility of configures whether to auto-run for each user... er, let me explain:

You can use either a self-healing component of HKCU Registry keys or ActiveSetup to ensure that every user gets the configuration.

If you use an HKCU Registry key, your MSI installer needs to have a component with it's "key file" as an HKCU entry--so thus the first time a new user launches the program, Windows Installer will do a self-heal to write those entries. One of those entries would be your HKCU/Software/Microsoft/Windows/Run value, but not the key value, because you want the users to be able to remove it and not have it come back every time they run the program! You would then want your program to have an option to remove the auto-run value.

If you use ActiveSetup (which I would recommend because it's simple and it "just works"), then you might find it easiest to make a simple app (or VBScript or such) which prompts the user if they want to have the monitor program auto-run. So your ActiveSetup would launch the prompt program/script, and the prompt program would create the HKCU/Software/Microsoft/Windows/Run value or, better yet, just a shortcut in the user's Start Menu\Programs\Startup directory.