Troubleshooting Program Deployment By Using Verbose Logging (246509)

IMPORTANT: This article contains information about modifying the registry. Before you modify the registry, make sure to back it up and make sure that you understand how to restore the registry if a problem occurs. For information about how to back up, restore, and edit the registry, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

256986 Description of the Microsoft Windows Registry

SUMMARY

When a program that is deployed through Group Policy is not installed correctly on a client computer, a log file can be generated that records the steps of the Group Policy Application Deployment component leading up to the unsuccessful installation. This information, in conjunction with logging from the Windows Installer service, can be very helpful in determining the cause of the problem.

For additional information about enabling logging for the Windows Installer service, click the article number below to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

223300 How to Enable Windows Installer Logging in Windows 2000

MORE INFORMATION

WARNING: If you use Registry Editor incorrectly, you may cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that you can solve problems that result from using Registry Editor incorrectly. Use Registry Editor at your own risk.

To enable verbose logging of Application Deployment operations, add the following registry value on the client computer. Delete this value after troubleshooting to avoid performance degradation:

Key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Diagnostics

Note that the you may need to create the Diagnostics key.

Value: AppMgmtDebugLevel
Type: REG_DWORD
Data: 4b

The logging file is named Appmgmt.log and is located in the %SystemRoot%\Debug\Usermode folder on the client computer.