Qt IFW Admin Install Test Project

Minimal reproducer to verify that a Qt Installer Framework (IFW) installer correctly performs system-wide installations when run with administrator privileges, and that the expected Windows registry entries are created so the application appears in Settings > Apps > Installed apps.

Background

When Qt IFW installers are executed from an elevated (administrator) prompt, several things must work correctly:

• The application installs to C:\Program Files\<AppName> instead of the per-user AppData\Local directory.
• Desktop shortcuts are placed on the Public Desktop (visible to all users).
• Start Menu shortcuts are created in the All Users Start Menu.
• An Uninstall registry entry is written under HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall so that Windows lists the application in "Installed apps" / "Programs and Features".

This project packages a trivial Qt application (demo.exe) with CPack's IFW generator and provides an automated test script to verify all of the above.

Prerequisites

• Qt 6.5+ (tested with Qt 6.9.1, MSVC 2022 x64)
• Qt Installer Framework 4.x (tested with 4.10)
• Visual Studio 2022/2026 with the C++ desktop workload
• CMake 3.19+

Project Structure

File	Purpose
CMakeLists.txt	Builds demo.exe and configures the IFW installer via CPack
installscript.js	IFW component script — creates shortcuts and handles admin vs. user paths
controlscript.js	IFW controller script — detects existing installations and offers uninstall
build_and_test.ps1	Automated end-to-end test: build → install → verify registry → uninstall
main.cpp	Trivial Qt application (the payload)

Usage

Build the installer

Configure and build from your IDE or command line:

cmake -B build -G Ninja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
cmake --build build --target package

The generated Demo-<version>-Setup.exe will be in the build directory.

Run the automated test

The test script builds the installer, runs a silent installation, checks the registry, and uninstalls — all in one step. Run it from an elevated (administrator) PowerShell prompt to test the admin install path:

.\build_and_test.ps1

The script exits with code 0 on success. If the registry entry is missing, it exits with code 1 and prints a diagnostic message.

Manual testing

Launch the installer interactively (from an elevated prompt to test admin behavior):

.\build\Qt-6.9.1\Release\Demo-0.0.0-Setup.exe --verbose

Key Implementation Details

Component assignment (CPACK_COMPONENTS_ALL)

CPack's IFW generator only applies per-component settings (install scripts, component names, etc.) when component-aware packaging is enabled. This requires:

1. install(TARGETS ... COMPONENT <name>) — assigns files to a named component.
2. set(CPACK_COMPONENTS_ALL "<name>") — tells CPack to use component-based packaging. Without this, all IFW component configuration is silently ignored.

Start Menu path handling

installer.value("StartMenuDir") returns a relative name ("Demo") in interactive mode but a fully resolved absolute path in CLI/silent mode. The install script extracts the leaf folder name to safely construct the All Users Start Menu path regardless of mode.