Google Chrome 24.0.1312.57 Applicability Rules

Good Day,

The Google Chrome 24.0.1312.57 EXE (Upgrade) package is documented as replacing a user only installation. The applicability rules, there are 3 per processor architecture, are looking for the App Path and version less than followed by 2 Registry entries under HKLM\Software\Micorosft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall. However, the per user install does not make any entries in this location of the registry. It does however appear under HKEY_Current_User\Software\Micorosft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall.

I did duplicate the package and remove the latter 2 Applicability rules and published, however, I am seeing machines 'Needing' which actually do not. Continuing to investigate.

Has anyone else seen similar results? Thank you.

Find more posts tagged with

3rd_party_updates

applicability

3rd_party_patch_management

google

applicability_rules

Accepted answers

All comments

antwesor

I have seem similar instances with earlier version of Google Chrome and I had about 15 workstations get Google Chrome when they did not need it.

I have not checked out this version of Google yet, but I will take a look before approving this update. Thanks for the heads up.

LGarvin

The behavior of replacing the user-only installation has nothing whatsoever to do with the package; that functionality is built into the Chrome installer itself. The installer that we package with our Chrome packages is the business installer, and it is explicitly coded by Google to remove the user-only installation.

In fact, to your observation, it is impossible for the WUAgent to evaluate any registry data within the USER hive (HKCU). This is because only the *Current User* branch would be available, and the WUAgent operates in the SYSTEM context, thus making it impossible to see into another interactive user's branch of HKCU.

This is exactly the reason why WU/MU/WSUS cannot update per-user installations of Microsoft Office, or any other application that supports per-user installation. That functionality must be coded into the installer/updater by the vendor.

FormerMember

LGarvin,

Understood and agreed. I beleive I could have been a little clearer in my earlier post.

My point is that this update should be applicable to both existing system and per user installs (I am deducing this from the description stating that it will remove per user installs... is this not correct?). However, the applicability rules due not find the machines with per user installs to be Needing the upgrade. This is due to the Registry entries mentioned that it checks for do not exist in the HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Uninstall because it is installed per user.

So I guess I am asking if this is by design? Am I misunderstanding the description? Is this upgrade only for system level installs? Any and all assistance and input is always appreciated. Thanks.

LGarvin

The update is applicable to both system and per-user installs.

In the case of a per-user install, the HKLM\Software key is missing, which means the file version cannot be evaluated, which results in a value of TRUE being returned for twoall three of those Applicability Rules and the update is "Needed". (An extended discussion about the interpretation of "with registry value" rules just occurred in this thread.)

CORRECTION: When I originally wrote the above statement, I overlooked the fact that one of the checks is in HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\App Paths\chrome.exe -- which Chrome actually does populate in a per-user installation. It contains the location of the per-user instance of the chrome.exe file -- which for some odd reason is located in %userprofile%\appdata\local\google\chrome\application -- so that test will return true if the per-user installation is out of date.

In the case of a machine install, if an older version is present, the TRUE result is also produced.

You said you removed the latter two applicability rules, but if you kept either of those File Version rules, then the absence of the registry value or the absence of the file would trigger a "Needed" condition. If you kept only the Registry Key Exists rule, then that should come back as NotApplicable on a per-user install because that HKLM\...\Uninstall\Google Chrome key would not exist.