<p>I'm working on an installer (using Wise Installer, older version from like 1999).</p>

<p>I'm creating a shortcut in the Programs group to an EXE. I'm also creating a shortcut on the Desktop.</p>

<p>If the install is run from an Admin account, then I create the shortcut on the Common Desktop and Common Program Group (i.e., read from the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Explorer\Shellfor All Users).
If it's installed from a NonAdmin account, then I install to the HKEY_CURRENT_USER's desktop and Program Group.</p>

<p><strong>Behavior</strong></p>

<p>Install on:</p>

<p><em>XP NonAdmin</em> - Desktop and Program Shortcuts install OK.</p>

<p><em>Vista Admin</em> - Desktop &amp; Program Shortcuts install OK.</p>

<p><em>Vista Non-Admin, UAC off</em>- <strong>Desktop shortcut installs, but Program Shortcut does not</strong>.  However, the Program group <em>folder</em> they're supposed to be installed to <em>does</em> get created.</p>

<p>At the end of the install, I launch the Program Group that has the shorcut. It launches in all of the above. I can manually drag a shortcut into that folder and it works just fine.</p>

<p>I'm bloody baffled.</p>

<p>I've tried installing some other commercial apps (Opera, Foxit, FireFox) Only FireFox will install under NonAdmin (and only if you select something other than Program Files, which I was aware is off limits to nonAdmin acounts).  And FF doesn't install an Uninstall Icon nor
Uninstall support from the Remove Programs.</p>

<p>I tried installing IE 7 and it <em>requires Admin</em> to install. It won't even install with temporarily elevated Admin.</p>

<p><strong>Perhaps the idea is that you're not supposed to install software in Vista from a NonAdmin account?</strong></p>

[{'answer_id': 58297, 'author': 'saschabeaumont', 'author_id': 592, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/592', 'pm_score': 2, 'selected': True, 'text': '<p>Vista does some nifty transparent redirection to provide backwards compatibility with non-vista applications. Try installing to the All Users location as a non-admin, and Vista should transparently put your shortcuts somewhere unique to that user.</p>\n'}, {'answer_id': 271307, 'author': 'Dave', 'author_id': 3095, 'author_profile': 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/3095', 'pm_score': 0, 'selected': False, 'text': '<p>I had a permissions issue with an installer I created when users started installing on Vista.  What solved my problem was renaming the installer to install.exe (or setup.exe).  </p>\n\n<p>-Dave</p>\n'}]
['https://Stackoverflow.com/questions/57759', 'https://Stackoverflow.com', 'https://Stackoverflow.com/users/4906/']