Details
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Bug
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Resolution: Obsolete
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High
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None
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3.4
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None
Description
The Windows Evaluation installer for Confluence stand-alone attempts to extract the confluence resources to %PROGRAMFILES%\Confluence Evaluation. From Windows Vista onwards, writing to %PROGRAMFILES% is an elevated operation and requires administrative privileges granted by UAC.
Applications that require administrative access should advertise this requirement to the host system via an application manifest embedded in the executable. Applications without this will simply get permission denied errors unless the user specifically selects to "Run As Administrator" from the right-click context menu.
The Confluence installer does not have an application manifest, and we do not provide any instructions to users on running the installer with administrative privileges. I think this is fairly critical barrier to entry for Confluence evaluators. For the average guy/gal installing Confluence for the first time, the installer will simply fail with an unhelpful error message.
Embedding a manifest in the installer executable should be pretty easy (see http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb756929.aspx), although I guess it would depend on whether the packager we are using to create the installer supports custom manifests.
Alternatively, the installer could write to a non-privileged directory by default, such as %PROGRAMDATA%.