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Sometimes when installing software on my Windows 7 Home Premium machine, I am prompted by the "Program Compatibility Assistant" with the following dialog:

Program Compatibility Assistant

How am I to decide if a program has installed correctly or not?

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  • 3
    If it works, it installed correctly.
    – Wutnaut
    Jun 13, 2014 at 15:53
  • I normally make that decision when the program works when I ran it.
    – Ramhound
    Jun 13, 2014 at 15:53
  • Could there be more subtle problems even if the program runs? Perhaps certain features might not work? Jun 13, 2014 at 16:18
  • Could there be more subtle problems even if the program runs? Perhaps certain features might not work? - Of course, but you wouldn't know that unless you knew how every feature and function works. If you're the developer or the person who built the installer then you could audit the computer after the install to make sure it did in fact install correctly, but short of that there's no guaranteed way of knowing.
    – joeqwerty
    Jun 13, 2014 at 16:27
  • More often than not, it installed correctly and this gets brought up erroneously. Simply try running the software you installed and make sure it works. If it doesn't, just go into the control panel and uninstall / reinstall it.
    – sab669
    Jun 13, 2014 at 18:32

1 Answer 1

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What it actually asks you is if installer has encountered any problems that caused it to abort. For example:

  • A message about missing system libraries appears and installer refuses to proceed.
  • The installer crashes mid-install or during the initial steps

In those cases you should click Reinstall using recommended settings. The second button, This program installed correctly is for cases when the installer has finished without any errors (older installers don't report it to the system correctly).

Answer to this dialog affects only the installation process, not further functionality of the program.

The third button, Cancel, is useful in one particular case. Sometimes when you decide to cancel installer manually, this question is appear. You should just cancel (or close) it, because technically speaking the installer hasn't closed correctly, but not due to some problem.

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