MSI + EXE installer causes inconsistent UAC service state or duplicate UI artifacts

[SecurityMan911]

Maybe someone could help me with this issue. I have one small issue I would like to understand.

Issue Summary

1. EXE installer behavior

When using the EXE installer (run as Administrator):

Installation completes and the client launches normally
The application prompts for UAC/elevated service installation via an in-app (pink) banner
After completing this UAC/service installation step, elevated functionality appears inconsistent in some cases (UAC/privileged remote actions are not always reliable or fully applied)

Because of this, I tested the MSI installer instead.

2. MSI installer behavior

When using the MSI installer:

Elevated/UAC-related functionality appears to work correctly and consistently after installation...
However, after installation, the application still presents the same pink UAC/service setup banner in the UI

It appears to run a secondary installation/repair process
This results in duplicate artifacts, including:
Duplicate desktop shortcuts (this can be unchecked but the other two below still happen)
Duplicate tray instances/icons
Additional or duplicate application entries/structure in Program Files / Add-Remove Programs

If I choose not to install the UAC via pink banner....

The system appears to still function correctly for remote access and elevation
However, the banner remains persistently visible, which could lead users to believe setup is incomplete and encourage them to run it again

Ideally:
Advice to fix the .exe from encountering UAC issues like (running cmd as admin)
or Installing the MSI without duplicate entries when running UAC install (or leaving UAC uninstalled, which seems to work still, but get rid of the banner)

Is there a supported method (MSI parameter, configuration, or deployment approach) to:

Fully initialize the UAC/elevated service layer during initial installation
Prevent the post-install banner from appearing
Avoid triggering a secondary installation flow that causes duplicate artifacts

I’m trying to achieve a clean, single-step deployment suitable for IT rollout environments without requiring user interaction after installation.

Thanks for any input

[jos-webservices]

Experienced the same recently with a "incoming only" version of rustdesk generated here. It seems it creates two different .exe files with slightly different names. For, the one had blanks in the name (as expected), for the other blanks were replaced by "_". E.g. like this:

• rustdesk - my-company.exe
• rustdesk_-_my-company.exe

Both were running in parallel and added to automatically be launched on startup.

[bryangerlach]

This can likely be fixed by removing any spaces in the app name. I'm not sure, but there have been some issues with spaces in the past. Some changes with how the generator handles the service and program name will likely need to be made to fix this particular issue to allow spaces.

[SecurityMan911]

This can likely be fixed by removing any spaces in the app name. I'm not sure, but there have been some issues with spaces in the past. Some changes with how the generator handles the service and program name will likely need to be made to fix this particular issue to allow spaces.

After regenerating with no spaces in the Custom Application Name, both EXE and MSI installs are now behaving correctly, and the UAC issue is resolved.

Just for reference:
The generator says Name of the configuration (no spaces or special characters, English characters only): Which I had no spaces.

but....

Custom Application Name just says (leave blank to use default): This is the one I had spacing in and got rid of the spacing for and it resolved both issues.

Thanks again for the help! 👍

[bryangerlach]

Yeah, at one point spaces were working for custom app name, but that appears to be broken right now.