Custom Actions Installer for Windows Service

Question

I have a windows service which I silent install using msiexec.exe and I am passing the username and password for the "Set Service Login"

The Service is successfully installing but upon Starting the service I am receiving "error 1069: The service did not start due to logon problems"my logon account is administrator and I have tested that when I manually install using the same msi file and start the service it is starting successfully, I am stuck and need some ideas and guidance of what I am missing.

here is my overriden method from Installer Class.

 public override void Install(IDictionary stateSaver)
    {
        base.Install(stateSaver);

        var userName = Context.Parameters["USERNAME"];
        var password = Context.Parameters["PASSWORD"];
        if (!string.IsNullOrWhiteSpace(userName) && userName.ToLower() != "admin")
        {
            CustomInstallerParameters customParameters = new CustomInstallerParameters(Context);

            SaveCustomParametersInStateSaverDictionary(stateSaver, customParameters);
        }
        else
        {
            Context.Parameters.Remove("USERNAME");
            Context.Parameters.Remove("PASSWORD");
        }
    }

TIA.

Answer 1

It appears that you are using a Visual Studio setup project, and most likely also using one of the TextBoxes dialogs to collect the input.

You can't silently pass these parameters on the command line because Visual Studio generates custom actions to clear them (and I don't know why). In a silent install Windows runs just the InstallExecuteSequence, and if you look in there with (for example) Orca you'll see custom actions such as "CustomTextA_SetProperty_EDIT1" that clear the values. To state the obvious, the values you currently get will be blank, and you could verify this by logging the values somewhere.

So a starting point to getting this to work is to use Orca to delete those custom action calls in the InstallExecuteSequence table.

After that, there is a potential problem that the values won't make it to your custom action because they are not secured, so in the Property table you'd need to add those property names to the SecureCustomProperties list, semi-colon delimited (EDIT1;EDIT2 and so on).

Visual Studio setup projects aren't good at any of this, and something like WiX would be better because no code is required to install, start or stop services, or configure them with an account.

Answer 2

Most likely, different decade, same problem.... (SeServiceLogonRight)

http://iswix.com/2008/09/22/different-year-same-problem/

FWIW, I wasn't a big WiX user yet back then (I was merely dabbling at that point) but there are some real gems in the comments from my Matthew Rowan. He is correct... all of this gets WAY easier if you are using WiX.

For example you can follow this tutorial:

https://github.com/iswix-llc/iswix-tutorials

This creates a windows service running as SYSTEM. Add a reference to the WiXUtil extension and namespace and author a User element with the LogonAsService right set and your all set.

FWIW, my only concern with all this is that MSI needs property persistence if you don't want a repair to come by and corrupt the username and password. Property persistence is pretty easy to remember ( See: http://robmensching.com/blog/posts/2010/5/2/the-wix-toolsets-remember-property-pattern/ ) but the problem is providing enough encryption to not expose the account.

It's for the reason I typically suggest just running as NetworkService or SYSTEM and grant the computer object rights in a domain. An alternative is to have the installer create the service account and randomize the password on each repair so you don't have to persist it.