Trying to secure administrator account from installing programs

[Mr Mike]

This may seem like a dumb question but you'll see my problem.

My daughter's PC is set up with her as a limited account. I'm the
administrator. That's the Microsoft recommends you do it, right?

She received a Sony MP3 player that came with a program called Sonic
Stage to rip MP3s and Sony music format files. The problem is Sonic
Stage requires administrator access. I don't want to give her
administrator access. I tried running it under a limited account and
it doesn't work. I tried tech support and it's a design feature!
heard that before!

Is there a way to set her up as an administrtor and lock her out form
doing anything I don't want her to do? I don't want her installing
programs, etc.

All help is appreciated.

Mr Mike

 

[Jose Gallardo]

You may want to use "RunAS" for that program. To do this, right click on the program and choose "Run as..."

 

[Bruce Chambers]

You may want to use "RunAS" for that program. To do this, right click on the program and choose "Run as..."

To the OP:

You may experience some problems if the software was designed for
Win9x/Me, or if it was intended for WinNT/2K/XP, but was improperly
designed. Quite simply, the application doesn't "know" how to handle
individual user profiles with differing security permissions levels, or
the application is designed to make to make changes to "off-limits"
sections of the Windows registry or protected Windows system folders.

For example, saved data are often stored in a sub-folder under the
application's folder within C:\Program Files - a place where no
inexperienced or limited user should ever have write permissions. (Games
are particularly likely to follow this horrible practice.)

It may even be that the software requires "write" access to parts
of the registry or protected systems folders/files that are not normally
accessible to regular users. (This *won't* occur if the application is
properly written.) If this does prove to be the case, however, you're
often left with three options: Either grant the necessary users
appropriate higher access privileges (either as Power Users or local
administrators), explicitly grant normal users elevated privileges to
the affected folders and/or part(s) or the registry, or replace the
application with one that was properly designed specifically for
WinNT/2K/XP.

Some Programs Do Not Work If You Log On from Limited Account
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;q307091

Additionally, here are a couple of tips suggested, in a reply to a
different post, by MS-MVP Kent W. England:

"If your game or application works with admin accounts, but not with
limited accounts, you can fix it to allow limited users to access the
program files folder with "change" capability rather than "read" which
is the default.

C:\>cacls "Program Files\appfolder" /e /t /p users:c

where "appfolder" is the folder where the application is installed.

If you wish to undo these changes, then run

C:\>cacls "Program Files\appfolder" /e /t /p users:r

If you still have a problem with running the program or saving
settings on limited accounts, you may need to change permissions on
the registry keys. Run regedit.exe and go to HKLM\Software\vendor\app,
where "vendor\app" is the key that the software vendor used for your
specific program. Change the permissions on this key to allow Users
full control."


--

Bruce Chambers

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