You may experience installation problems when you use Systems Management Server 2003 to deploy Windows Installer packages (916903)

SYMPTOMS

You may experience one of the following symptoms when you use Microsoft Systems Management Server (SMS) 2003 to deploy Microsoft Windows Installer packages.

Symptom 1

You receive the following error message on the client computer when the package is installing:

Error 1706. No valid source could be found for product Product Name. The Windows installer cannot continue.

Symptom 2

Consider the following scenario. You use the default SMS 2003 settings by either not using command-line switches, or by using one of the following command-line switches:

/q
/passive
/qb

In this scenario, the advertisement runs on the client computer and the Application event log shows that the application is installed. However, the application does not appear in the Add or Remove Programs utility in Control Panel. Additionally, Windows Installer may put the program shortcuts in locations other than the desktop or the Start menu.

CAUSE

These problems occur because the Windows Installer packages do not have the ALLUSERS property value preset when the packages are created. This causes Windows Installer to set the value to "NULL." When you deploy a package by using SMS 2003, the installation runs under the SYSTEM context. The ALLUSERS property value must be defined if Windows Installer is trying to install as a user who differs from the locally logged-on user. Additionally, when the ALLUSERS property value is set to "NULL," the package performs a "per user installation," and no registry key entry is written to following registry subkey:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall

Therefore, the program is not added to the Add or Remove Programs utility in Control Panel.

RESOLUTION

To resolve this problem, type Name.msi /SwitchesALLUSERS=2 in the Command line box. For example, you can type the following command:

install_flash_player_active_x.msi ALLUSERS=2

This transfers the ALLUSERS property to the Setup phase, and the correct data is written to the registry entry key.

Note You cannot use the ALLUSERS property together with the /passive command-line switch.

MORE INFORMATION

You can use a software development tool such as ORCA to edit the Windows Installer package. You can also use Orca to add the ALLUSERS property.

For more information about the ALLUSERS property, see the following Microsoft Web site: http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/msi/setup/allusers.asp

For more information about how to use the Orca database editor to edit Windows Installer files, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

255905 How to use the Orca database editor to edit Windows Installer files