I've got an installer that whines about being installed on the wrong OS if I try to install it on XP (it lets you install anyway and works fine after being installed - just bad OS detection I guess). I've found that I can run the installer in NT4 SP5 compatibility mode and it then keeps quiet about being installed on the "wrong" OS. Is there a way I can script having the program start in compatibility mode in a batch file?

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ooo, nice trick

Just tried it - doesn't work. Apparently the compatibility mode setting doesn't go with the shortcut. I created the ISO with the shortcut and mounted it in Virtual PC. The shortcut in Virtual PC doesn't have the compatibility settings checked like it did prior to that.

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That looks very promising (and exactly the key I was looking for)

Works like a charm! I tested it on both Virtual PC and on a freshly formatted separate computer.

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This will be very useful. Good find.

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For the record, if you do this with a CD drive, the path is a really weird format (not just D:\blah.exe). Instead, it looks like this:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\AppCompatFlags\Layers]"SIGN=444651F lv5\\installer\\disk1\\SETUP.EXE"="NT4SP5"

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Most installers just look up the registry key with the os name in it.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion

Why not just change the key "ProductName" from "Microsoft Windows XP" to whatever opperating system you need with a reg file then change it back after the program has installed.

This is tested and works with my scanner driver/program

No need for compatibility or paths then!

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Compatibility mode is a bit more complex than just checking for the OS version.