WebClient installation types

There are two types of WebClient installations: Administrator installations and Personal installations. The two types need different permissions and write files to different locations.

Administrator installations

An Administrator installation creates a single installed copy of a WebClient application on a machine that all end user have access to. To accomplish this, the install writes the WebClient and WebClient application information to areas that are common to all users a machine, such as the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE (HKLM) registry key and the C:\Program Files directory. Using these shared areas requires write permissions that are restricted to Admin users. After the installation, these privileges are still required to handle application updates and to download components as needed. If desired, the Admin can set up batch jobs to handle application updates.

For security reasons, you might not want to grant all users Admin privileges. To use a WebClient application in that case, administrators must install the application and grant limited write privileges to the application users.

Personal installations

An administrator does not control this type of installation. If the end users have access to the WebClient Initializer, they can decide to install a personal copy of the application on their machine.

Only the user who installs the personal instance has access to it. For example, if an Administrator ran the WebClient Application Manager, they would not see any of the personal instances that users had installed on the their machine.

Note: Some IntelliStream System Tasks require Administrator privileges to install. If your application makes use of these tasks, users cannot install personal instances of your WebClient application.

A personal installation creates a separate copy of the WebClient application for each user. The installation uses the HKEY_CURRENT_USER (HKCU) registry key and the user's own application data directory, such as C:\Documents and Settings\user-name\Application Data.

If the WebClient installer determines that an end user does not have Admin permissions, the installer switches to performing a personal install.

Multiple installations on one machine

Progress recommends that you do not use both installation types of the same WebClient application on a single machine. If several users on the same machine use a WebClient application, a single Administrator installation uses less resources. You should uninstall any personal installations of an application if an Administrator installation exists.

However, circumstances might cause a machine to host a mix of Administrator and personal instances of WebClient applications. As a result, a user might attempt to use a personal instance of a particular application that they installed before the Administrator instance was installed. You might also have several different WebClient applications installed on the same machine. When there are multiple WebClient installations on a single machine, an Administrator installation has precedence over a personal installation.

Figures 1 and 2 show the logic process by which WebClient Initializer chooses which instances of the WebClient and the WebClient application to start. The first thing that the Initializer checks is if there is an Administrator instance of WebClient application available. If there is an Administrator instance of the WebClient application, it runs through the process shown in Figure 1. If not, it runs through the process shown in Figure 2.

If there is no appropriate version of the WebClient available, the process does not upgrade an existing instance. Instead, it installs a completely new instance. This preserves the already installed instances for any other WebClient application that might need those particular versions.

When an end user does not have sufficient privileges to update an Administrator instance of a WebClient application, the Initializer launches the last installed version of the application. However, the end user might see error messages when necessary upgrades cannot be made.

If the Initializer does not find an appropriate version of the WebClient application, the result depends on how the application deployer designs the deployment. If the deployer specified an upgrade path for the currently installed version, the Initializer launches the upgrade. If the deployer did not specify an upgrade path, then the Initializer installs a new personal instance of the WebClient application.

Figure 1. Figure 1: Launching an Administrator instance of a WebClient application


Note: The Figure 1 assumes that you have already performed the initial installation of the WebClient application. The asterisk (*) indicates that the user might see errors when they cannot make necessary upgrades.

When the Initializer does not find an appropriate version of the WebClient application, it checks whether the deployer has specified an upgrade path for the version of the existing instance. If so, it upgrades the existing instance. Otherwise, it installs a new instance of the WebClient application. Administrators might need to uninstall superseded instances to free up disk space.

Even for a personal installation of a WebClient application, the Initializer first checks if there is an Administrator instance of WebClient from some other installation with an acceptable version. If it finds no appropriate Administrator instance of WebClient, it switches to looking for personal instances of WebClient.

Figure 2. Figure 2: Launching a personal instance of a WebClient application