Q110697: INFO: Enable Windows Installer Logging with Group Policies
Products
InstallShield 11.5 Premier, InstallShield 11.5 Professional
Project Type
Basic MSI
Summary

Windows Installer can use logging to help assist in troubleshooting issues with installing software packages through Active Directory. This article describes how to enable this logging service.


Discussion

You can enable logging with Group Policies by editing the appropriate OU or Directory Group Policy.

  1. Under Group Policy, expand Computer Configuration, expand Administrative Templates, expand Windows Components, and then select Windows Installer.

  2. Double-click Logging.

  3. Click Enabled.

  4. In the Logging box, enter the options you want to log.
The log file, Msi.log, appears in the Temp folder of the system volume, represented by the %TEMP% environment variable.
 
For logging options, we typically recommend the value of 'voicewarmup', which is a mnemonic that uses most of the following logging parameters:
 
Letter
Option
v
Verbose output
o
Out-of-disk-space messages
i
Status messages
c
Initial UI parameters
e
All error messages
w
Non-fatal warnings
a
Start up of actions
r
Action-specific records
m
Out-of-memory or fatal exit information
u
User requests
p
Terminal properties
+
Append to existing file
!
Flush each line to the log

 

NOTE: On Windows XP/Vista Home editions, there is no Group Policy editor, and instead it is necessary to add the logging options manually to the 'Logging' string value in the following location:
 
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Installer

Last Modified Date: 02-04-2010ID: Q110697