Installing Live Mesh preview on Windows Server 2008

I had heard of Microsoft's Live Mesh before, but when I saw J.H. from our ITpro.fi group to actually use it, I wanted to give it a try myself. I'm currently using the version 0.9.3424.14, and I must say I'm impressed. Works like a charm!

That is, on all computers I've tested it (four in total) except my Windows Server 2008 development machine. On Windows Server 2008, I could not install the utility, because I got an error message immediately after running LiveMesh.exe:

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Live Mesh
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This installation is forbidden by system policy.
Details about this problem can be found here.
[80070659] This installation is forbidden by
system policy. Contact your system administrator.
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OK   
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Now, ahem, which policy? I haven't set any explicit group policies on this server, so it couldn't be anything that like. Also, running the installation program with real admin rights ("Run as Administrator") didn't help either, "Product does not support running under an elevated [80080017]". No luck on the first try, that is.

Luckily, the help link on the original error message pointed me to an Windows Installer related property called DisableMSI. From the Windows Installer documentation on MSDN, I gathered that even though I haven't set an explicit policy, this is the same as I had disabled support for MSI installations.

Now, to solve the problem at hand, I needed to manually create an registry key to enable the installation of Live Mesh. Following the Windows Installer documentation, I created a key named "DisableMSI" (a 32-bit DWORD) under the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Installer, and set its value to zero (0). After this, Live Mesh installed just great!

As a sidenote, Live Mesh starts transferring files from the monitored directory (directories) in about 30 to 60 seconds after they are placed to the folder. While the transfer operation is in place, the blue circle icon on the taskbar tray area spins, and you can see files with the .WLX appearing on the designated directory. These are "Live Mesh Placeholder Files". The application itself installs itself somewhat sneakingly under your profile, but this avoids running into UAC and security issues. On my machine, the installation path is C:\Users\Jani Järvinen\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Live Mesh\Bin\Servicing\0.9.3424.14.

Now, if you need to transfer (smallish) files from place A to B and/or you need to access your files from anywhere, try Live Mesh. Works well for me. Get started at www.mesh.com.

Keywords: How to install Live Mesh beta on Windows Server 2008.