Don’t forget about security

Benefits

• Allows your application to run properly in secure environments
• Prevents your setup application from being used to breach security.
• Reduces application errors associated with reading and writing files

Description

Don’t forget about security, always Expect a Secure Desktop. The need for more secure desktops is pushing many organizations to tighten their desktop security policies. Unless your setup application is aware of this, you could run into problems in a secure environment.

There are a myriad of problems that can affect an installation program that doesn’t anticipate running in a secure environment. The good news is that you can avoid many of these pitfalls by thinking ahead and following the principles outlined in the Data Separation and Desktop Management guidelines.

The most important things to remember are:

• Don’t assume that you’ll have the same access rights at run time as you had at install time. An administrator may have installed your application, or policy may have been set after you were installed.

• Don’t assume that certain folders will always be writeable. Follow the Data Separation Guidelines.

• Test your setup on all platforms. An installation that works on Microsoft^® Windows^® 2000 secured systems, should work on earlier versions of Windows . The reverse is not always true.

Considerations

Use caution when considering using the AlwaysInstallElevated system policy. Be aware that using this policy may have security implications on some platforms.

See Also

AlwaysInstallElevated, Data Separation Guidelines, Desktop Management, Expect a Secure Desktop