Error: This installer needs access to "My Documents"

[ThiCop]

Hello Paul,

I have informed Henk about the existence of this forum post.

The results/outcome of his troubleshooting together with you will also be posted on this page (to help other users with the same issues).

[Henk85]

Hello Paul and all involved,

We are currently busy  to investigate this topic.

I will inform you when there is news about this issue. And i hope it will resolve this problem.

Thanks for mentioning this behavior, this way we can make things better.

With Regards,

Henk Talsma

Applications Engineer - NI Netherlands

[jmccracken112]

I won't hold my breath... The topic started in 2010, I'd like to think if this matter was more important to the NI team so hopefully Henk can be of greater assistance.

[PaulRijk]

nevertheless, I'm glad that Henk Talsma pushed the R&D department in a moving state ....

Paul

[Henk85]

Hi Guys,

After some contact with the R&D we have dificulties to reproduce the issue.

So i would like to know (if possible) when this behavior occurs.

I used this method to map 'my docuemts'to a network drive:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/310147 

Please confirm or correct me if you or your customer is using another method.

I found out it's not with every installer, can you please let me know what components you have in common?

thx!

With Regards,

Henk Talsma

Applications Engineer - NI Netherlands

[jmccracken112]

This policy is set through group policy on a Windows Server 2008 R2 domain controller.

To redirect My Documents to the home directory

1. Open a GPO that is linked to the site, domain, or OU that contains the users whose My Documents folders you want to redirect.
   
   
2. In the console tree, double-click Folder Redirection to display My Documents.
   
   
3. Right-click My Documents, and then click Properties.
   
   
4. In the Setting box, on the Target tab, select Basic - Redirect everyone’s folder to the same location.
   
   
5. Under Target folder location, select Redirect to the user’s home directory (See attached for home directory), and then click OK.
   
   

Note

Domain administrators have full control over the users’ My Documents folder when you redirect My Documents to the home directory. This is the case even if you select the Grant the user exclusive rights to My Documents option on the Settings tab in the My Documents Properties dialog box.

[jojoguy10]

jmccracken112's Regedit idea worked flawlessly for me!

Thanks!

[Henk85]

Hi Guys,

We are still working on this issue, and making progress!

We can reproduce the issue, but it seems to be (as already mentioned) a permission issue.

When the user has full administrator rights, on the PC itself and on the folder where the ' my documents' are mapped to, there should not be a problem.

I ahve to be honest, i thought i was admin, but it seems i wasn't. After using the  all-access granted account i was able to install the RT engine with the my documents mapped.

Still, I understand that it could be annoying that you have to use a all access account, but please give it a try.

Hope to hear your results!

Cheers,

Henk

[jmccracken112]

We're talking about a Windows active directory environment here where the "Domain Admins" or the "All-Access granted" group should not and will not be given out to users that want to install NI programs. I hope this isn't your solution...

The solution should be to change where the NI installers looks during installation. It's looking to environment variable user paths rather than a static location which is causing the issue. Can your team update the installers to point to C:\National Instruments Downloads\Temp or something instead?

[ggianop]

Editing the registry worked for me (But what a shame that in this day and age the installer can't handle such a common configuration.)

The directions given previously were not sufficiently accurate though. In Windows 8 (64-bit) I had to traverse to the registry key:

      Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\User Shell Folders

And edit the String value named: Personal

And remove the reference to the network path. I temporarily chose to change from "L:\My Documents" to "C:\My Documents". Apparently the directory is NOT even used for anything as on my machine the directory does not even exist.

As soon as the install was finished, I changed the registry value back.

(Note: There is also a similar "Personal" Registry value entry at "Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Shell Folders", but this is NOT seen by the NI Installer.)

FYI: Running "Run As Admin" does NOT help the situation. It is NOT a permissions issue and I of course validated that the drive is accessible prior to and during the installer's session. (I use LiveDrive to create a Briefcase folder which is mapped to the cloud and replicated to all my systems. Live Drive installs a virtual device driver which maps a new drive to the machine. In my case drive L: appears just as a mapped network drive. The NI installer can't handle it even though the drive is accessible and supported by most other installers (Although I had problems with a very old HP Printer driver installer too.)

To the NI developers, I'd look at the method used to validate the existence of the directory; probably not a Windows API compatible with network locations and UNC conventions. There are new versions that support these resources. Of course, why in the world the installer is even performing this unecessary step is an even bigger mystery. It is NOT used by the application I'm installing NOR the NI component itself.

Lastly, in my case I was installing the iBike Newton package on my computer which embeds a National Instruments component.