WiX CustomAction fails to start program with "Application cannot be restarted - Application SID does not match Conductor SID" warning

Question

I have a client application for tracking user status ("Gone for the day", "Out to lunch", etc.) that needs to be started as part of its installation process. I have set up a wix installer to handle the installation and in particular a CustomAction to launch the application once the installation is complete. Below is the xml

<CustomAction Id="Launch_StatusTracker" FileKey="StatusTracker" ExeCommand="" 
              Return="asyncNoWait" />
<InstallExecuteSequence>
  <Custom Action="Launch_StatusTracker" After="InstallFinalize">NOT Installed</Custom>
  <Custom Action="WixCloseApplications" Before="InstallInitialize">Installed</Custom>
</InstallExecuteSequence>

The code above executes just fine when I manually run the generated msi on my machine. It installs the application and then starts it up. However, when the application is installed using an SCCM 2012 Application the program is installed but it does not startup. Here is the warning message that I see in the Windows Event Viewer:

Application 'C:\Program Files\StatusTracker\StatusTracker.exe' (pid 7216) cannot be restarted - Application SID does not match Conductor SID.

I've looked online for this type of error but I haven't been able to find anything about it that relates to SCCM. As an alternative I tried to have it run a batch file instead that will startup the program but that will not work for me because I need the program to run in the context of the current user.

Answer 1

What context is SCCM running the installer in? Typically it's SYSTEM and that's probably causing problems trying to start the process in the interactive user context. I used to have some tricks to get around this but they are all hacks. You may just have to take a reboot and have it start on next logon.

You can use PSEXEC to launch a command prompt as SYSTEM. Test the install silent in that context to mimic SCCM behavior.