Winamp & Multi-users?

[Ben Blackmore]

Hi,

I dunno if this is the right newsgroup to be asking this, if not sorry.

I have set up a Windows 2000 Pro (SP4) PC at home, where I have an account,
and my girlfriend has an account. I have set myself up as an administrator,
and her as a standard user. I installed winamp on my account and it works
fine, however when I run it from her account it crashes with a studio.exe
error. I have tried installing it from her account, which installs ok, but
then when you run it, it still crashes!

Any ideas?

Cheers

Ben

 

[Lurch]

Hi,

I dunno if this is the right newsgroup to be asking this, if not sorry.

I have set up a Windows 2000 Pro (SP4) PC at home, where I have an account,
and my girlfriend has an account. I have set myself up as an administrator,
and her as a standard user. I installed winamp on my account and it works
fine, however when I run it from her account it crashes with a studio.exe
error. I have tried installing it from her account, which installs ok, but
then when you run it, it still crashes!

Any ideas?

Try changing her account to an Administrator. I did that on all my W2K
machines and it fixed a whole host of niggling problems!

 

[Simon Elliott]

Try changing her account to an Administrator. I did that on all my W2K
machines and it fixed a whole host of niggling problems!

Whenever I get this sort of problem I use RegMon (from
www.sysinternals.com) to find the offending registry key(s) and,
assuming they're not too wide a breach, allow user access.

Is W95 compatibility mode an option?

FWIW I use WinAmp and works quite happily for admin and power users.

 

[Ben Blackmore]

Try changing her account to an Administrator. I did that on all my W2K
machines and it fixed a whole host of niggling problems!

Yeah trouble is, she has a habit of installing loads of crappy software,
which ends up crashing the machine! I wanted to keep her a little restricted
so she can't install stuff, or cause to much damage!

 

[Ben Blackmore]

Whenever I get this sort of problem I use RegMon (from
www.sysinternals.com) to find the offending registry key(s) and,
assuming they're not too wide a breach, allow user access.

Is W95 compatibility mode an option?

FWIW I use WinAmp and works quite happily for admin and power users.

I've set her to power user for the moment, which works, I will try regmon
tonight, see if I can find what the problem is!

Cheers

Ben

 

[Lurch]

Yeah trouble is, she has a habit of installing loads of crappy software,
which ends up crashing the machine! I wanted to keep her a little restricted
so she can't install stuff, or cause to much damage!

You're obviously too soft, send her packing if she installs anything!
There won't be a second time. ;-)

 

[Grok]

One should not work as Administrator on your machine, unless you are
managing security. On occasions you need to manage security, log on
to Administrator and do the work, then switch back to your regular
user account. OR, if you are running Win2000 server or Win2003
Server, install Terminal Services in administrative mode, TS into
yourself as Admin and do the work.

The only purpose of an Administrator is to manage security! Thus, by
running normal programs as Admin, you are enabling all said programs
elevated permissions to do evil things to your system. So get in the
habit of using the least-privileged account required for your daily
work, and you will be happier in the long run.

 

[Lurch]

One should not work as Administrator on your machine, unless you are
managing security. On occasions you need to manage security, log on
to Administrator and do the work, then switch back to your regular
user account. OR, if you are running Win2000 server or Win2003
Server, install Terminal Services in administrative mode, TS into
yourself as Admin and do the work.

The only purpose of an Administrator is to manage security! Thus, by
running normal programs as Admin, you are enabling all said programs
elevated permissions to do evil things to your system. So get in the
habit of using the least-privileged account required for your daily
work, and you will be happier in the long run.

Didn't make me any happier, f*uck all worked as a user on a single
system. It only seemed to worked when logging onto a domain as a user.
Therefore the administrator account is the only way to get everything
working when using a single machine not on a domain.

 

[Ben Blackmore]

I have set up myself an account, called ben, although it is part of the
admin group. I see what you mean though, I might lower the group to power
using on it tonight!

 

[Ben Blackmore]

Didn't make me any happier, f*uck all worked as a user on a single
system. It only seemed to worked when logging onto a domain as a user.
Therefore the administrator account is the only way to get everything
working when using a single machine not on a domain.

Hehe, thats windows for you :-D

 

[Simon Elliott]

Didn't make me any happier, f*uck all worked as a user on a single
system. It only seemed to worked when logging onto a domain as a user.
Therefore the administrator account is the only way to get everything
working when using a single machine not on a domain.

I would tend to agree with Grok.

I generally run as a power user and only login as admin when necessary.
The rest of the family share this machine and each member has their own
account. Both the wife and I know the admin password and can sign in and
change things as necessary.

If you need quick access to an admin type function, RC on the shortcut

Properties > Shortcut and select 'Run as a different user'.

HTH

 

[Lurch]

I would tend to agree with Grok.

I generally run as a power user and only login as admin when necessary.
The rest of the family share this machine and each member has their own
account. Both the wife and I know the admin password and can sign in and
change things as necessary.

If you need quick access to an admin type function, RC on the shortcut

Hmmm, I do know all this so I suppose I should really try and fix the
problems rather than just 'papering over the cracks' as it were. I can
see a re-install coming on while I'm at it!

 

[Gary Smith]

One should not work as Administrator on your machine, unless you are
managing security. On occasions you need to manage security, log on
to Administrator and do the work, then switch back to your regular
user account. OR, if you are running Win2000 server or Win2003
Server, install Terminal Services in administrative mode, TS into
yourself as Admin and do the work.

The only purpose of an Administrator is to manage security! Thus, by
running normal programs as Admin, you are enabling all said programs
elevated permissions to do evil things to your system. So get in the
habit of using the least-privileged account required for your daily
work, and you will be happier in the long run.

While this is fine in theory, I find that in practice it does not work.
There are simply too many things I want to do on a regular basis that
simply don't work unless you have administrator privileges. This
stand-alone machive has three administrator-level accounts and two
power-user accounts. The administrator acoounts are mine. The power-user
accounts are for other family members. I never use them unless I'm trying
to diagnose some problem.