Hey there!
Here's what's probably happening:
- The installer you're shipping is not one of the supported build types: https://itch.io/docs/itch/integrating/platforms/windows.html
- The app can't figure out how to run the installer and still..
- Install in the default install location of the app
- Install silently (without showing the installer's UI)
- Install without asking for administrator rights
- ...so instead it crosses its fingers, hopes it's *not* an installer and just the actual game as a single .exe (that happens a lot)
- ...and just copies the exe to the game folder
- Then when you try to run it, it can't, because it's not the game, it's an installer, and it requires Administrative rights to run
Here's what I suggest you do:
- Don't ship an installer at all
- Just ship a folder
- Use https://itch.io/docs/butler/ to upload it
- If your game needs some things to be installed beforehand, specify prerequisites in your app manifest: https://itch.io/docs/itch/integrating/prereqs/
- If your game is actually an Unreal Engine 4 game, you don't have anything to do (no manifest needed) - the app will look for the UE4 prerequisite installer and run it.
- If you spent 10 minutes on butler and it still won't work for you, that's ok, you can just zip up your game's folder (using 7-zip for example) and upload it via web. It won't be as great for users as if you uploaded with butler, but it'll work too.
Hope this helps!