Active Setup - Advance Application Packaging

Active Setup

Active setup is a process that runs automatically when a user logs in. Active Setup runs for
every user belong to that domain\server\machine.

Registry key location :

"HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Active Setup\Installed Components\%APPLICATIONNAME%" &

"HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Active Setup\Installed Components\%APPLICATIONNAME%"

If your application requires installation of files or registry keys on a per-user basis, but your
application has no advertised entry points or other triggers to initiate the installation
process, then Active Setup is the solution.

To implement Active Setup, you need to package all your user installation requirements into
an single installation or executable and point active setup to that executable and point this
executable to StubPath entry in active path registry location.

If the HKCU Active Setup registry entry exist or the version number of HKCU is equal to
HKLM, then the specified application is executed for the current user.

Ex
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Active Setup\Installed
Components\[ProductCode]]
"StubPath"="%Programdata%\Test\SelfExecute.exe"
"Version"="1,0"

Value for StubPath could be :

1. "%Programdata%\Test\SelfExecute.exe"
2. "msiexec /fpu [ProductCode] /qn"
3. "%Programdata%\Test\SelfExecute.vbs"
When each new user logs on, the operating system compares Active Setup keys between
HKLM and HKCU, and runs the StubPath Instruction if the HKCU entry is missing or the
version in HKCU is less than HKLM.
So if you ever need to update the ActiveSetup executable, just install a new version, and
increment the Version registry key (VALUE2 above) in HKLM.Next time the user logs on, the
active setup will run again for that user.

VBS to use versioning of the active setup :

Option Explicit
On Error Resume Next
Dim objShell,intVersion,strStubPath
Set objShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
strStubPath = "msiexec /fou {Package-code} /qn"
objShell.RegWrite "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Active Setup\Installed
Components\{Package-code}_Install\StubPath", strStubPath , "REG_SZ"
intVersion = objShell.RegRead("HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Active Setup\Installed
Components\{Package-code}_Install\Version")
intVersion = intVersion + 1
objShell.RegWrite "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Active Setup\Installed
Components\{Package-code}_Install\Version", intVersion , "REG_SZ"
Set objShell = Nothing

This will increment the HKLM active Setup version by one and when user logsin next time
Active setup will run again as HKCU Active Setup entry will have lesser version than HKLM.

I hope this post describe complete Active Setup fundamentals,

Please post your related query’s in comments so that we can add up more knowledge on it.

Thank you for reading.