NSIS Permissions and System32

[Vincentv189]

Good morning/afternoon all,

I hoping someone can assist with this odd issue I am seeing in NSIS. I have a Powershell script that I am attempting to wrap in NSIS. This script modifies the local group policy via updating the Registry.pol file in C:\Windows\System32\GroupPolicy\Machine. Running this script via right click run as admin on the source bat file works fine.

However whenever a bat file is called in NSIS, even though the bat file has administrator, it cannot even see the Machine folder.

To test the permissions I am now wrapping a simple bat file to call a cmd window so I can play around in the NSIS permissions, if I go to the GroupPolicy folder and run a dir I get this:

C:\Windows\System32\GroupPolicy>dir

Directory of C:\Windows\System32\GroupPolicy

12/08/2016 05:27 PM <DIR> .
12/08/2016 05:27 PM <DIR> ..
12/08/2016 05:27 PM 11 gpt.ini
1 File(s) 11 bytes
2 Dir(s) 732,180,004,864 bytes free


I am running this RequestExecutionLevel admin set, and have verifed that the cmd window and the ps window are both elevated.

In nsis I run this command to call the bat: ExecWait '"$INSTDIR\Test.bat" ' $0

The bat file contains this:

CD %~dp0
call cmd.exe

Really unsure what to do next.

Thanks in advanced to anyone that could lend some insight, or even just wild conjecture as to why that folder

[Anders]

My guess is that this is a 64-bit system? If it is you are probably running into the file-system redirector.

What happens if you do:

!include x64.nsh
Section
${DisableX64FSRedirection}
ExecWait '"$InstDir\Test.bat"' $0
${EnableX64FSRedirection}
SectionEnd

?

(I don't recommend this usage in an actual installer but testing it is fine)

[Vincentv189]

Success! that was it!

Doing a dir on the folder now with the redirection disabled reveals the full folder list.

I imagine the path forward would be messing with the %windir% variable. Any quick suggestions would be appreciate, but thank you again for figuring out whats going on!

[Anders]

%windir% will not change anything, in a 32-bit app the System32 folder is redirected to SysWow64.

You can get to the real System32 folder on Vista+ with %windir%\SysNative but you need to make sure you are on a 64-bit system because that folder does not exist on 32-bit Windows.