Publishing ActiveX controls using GPO and VS Installer

[jwooten]

I am trying to allow users to install a Crystal Reports ActiveX control, which enables them to view content in Internet Explorer. By default the User group in Windows does not allow for ActiveX installation (have to be at least power user), which is why you have to use the group policy. I have figured out how to make this work, but the problem is that the control is not installing right.

There are 4 controls that are installed when you visit the webpage that needs the control, which actually only uses 2 different .cab files. Microsoft says that you can use Visual Studio Installer 1.1 to package files into an .msi file. The .msi file is needed to insert in the Software Installation part of the Group Policy. I took the .cab file and added it to my project in Visual Studio and packaged it as an .msi file and placed it on a shared network drive. When the user now visits the website, the msi installation process starts (which it should), and installs the file. However, this is where it goes wrong. Instead of installing the control, placing files in the system directory, it only creates a folder in Progam Files and simply inserts the .cab file into it. It doesn't actually install the control, only places a .cab file in a folder...never extracting it and installing.

Can anyone help?
Note: I think it has something to do with Visual Studio Installer, because when I looked at the project (msi) properties, there was an option for installation source. There were four different options, but none for the "Downloaded Program Files" folder, which is where all ActiveX controls are installed to.

 

[mmv]

Well you can do a number of things really.

The simplest is to use a repackaging tool like Wininstall LE from the 2000 Server CD.

With WinInstall LE you can take a snapshot of the system, install the control, take a second snapshot and the program will create an msi based on the differences between the two snapshots.
That way you can also see what is happening during install by analyzing the msi.

Just read the manual carefully. Snapshooting is not as easy as it sounds, as you might get more than just your installation included in the snapshot.

However, once you've learned to use a msi tool, it will enhance your GPO distributions tremendously.
Personally I recomend Wise.

 

[jwooten]

Thanks mmv. I just installed the WinInstall LE last week but hadn't had a chance to use it yet. I'll give this a shot and see if it works for me.

 

[jwooten]

Well, I followed the suggestion above, and published it in W2K server. When the User visits the website that triggers the ActiveX control, it appears to install correctly now. However, there still seems to be a security issue of some kind. When it tries to run,this message appears, "The Crystal ActiveX control is unable to create its resource objects". All the zones are allowing these to run, so I'm not sure what is not allowing the User group to run the control. Does anyone know what else may need to be done in order for this to work? Possibly another setting in the Group Policy OU?