DOS program works in Admin account but not in a User account

[Robert M Jones]

Newbie to WinXP-Home but otherwise fairly competent.
I have a legacy DOS program (Bible software) that runs fine in my XP
Home Admin account which is the one I installed it in (simply by copying
across the folder from an old win98HDD into the new C drive) but when I
run the shortcut or the exe file in my user account it just opens the
initial menu screen - if I click on one of the choices the screen
flashes off and that's it - finished = the problem is associated with
the underlying *.exe file - if I click that it just flashes on and off.

I've adjusted the underlying exe file as well as the bat file that the
shortcut runs, to be compatible as for Win98.

Can anyone give me any pointers to why this would happen in a user
account when the program works fine in an Admin account, and what can I
do about it? Is it associated with the fact that I just copied the
folder rather than running the full install from the floppies?

I've tried making the relevant folder and sub folders shared for all
users and also tried dragging it into the Shared documents folder (which
produces failures because of dud path entries in the various bat files)
but that doesn't improve things.

Many thanks.
--
Rev Robert M Jones, Wimborne Baptist Church, UK
http://www.wimborne-baptist.org.uk
Free trial of Mailwasher Pro - effective email spam filter - (commission
goes to our partners in Bulgaria)
http://fta.firetrust.com/index.cgi?id=420

 

[Michael Bednarek]

Newbie to WinXP-Home but otherwise fairly competent.
I have a legacy DOS program (Bible software) that runs fine in my XP
Home Admin account which is the one I installed it in (simply by copying
across the folder from an old win98HDD into the new C drive) but when I
run the shortcut or the exe file in my user account it just opens the
initial menu screen - if I click on one of the choices the screen
flashes off and that's it - finished = the problem is associated with
the underlying *.exe file - if I click that it just flashes on and off.

I've adjusted the underlying exe file as well as the bat file that the
shortcut runs, to be compatible as for Win98.

Can anyone give me any pointers to why this would happen in a user
account when the program works fine in an Admin account, and what can I
do about it? Is it associated with the fact that I just copied the
folder rather than running the full install from the floppies?

I've tried making the relevant folder and sub folders shared for all
users and also tried dragging it into the Shared documents folder (which
produces failures because of dud path entries in the various bat files)
but that doesn't improve things.

I assume it has something to do with access rights.

Open a command line window (Run... cmd), and navigate to the directory
where your program is; let's assume that directory is C:\Bible, then:
CD /D C:\Bible

Then run this command to show the access rights:
cacls .
and
cacls *.exe

Then post the output of these commands - you can cut and paste from the
command line window by: Alt+Space Edit Mark Shift+Arrow keys to
highlight, Enter to Copy, switch to your News Reader, Ctrl+V to paste.

Alternatively, you can inspect the access rights through the Graphical
User Interface in Explorer: navigate to the directory, highlight the
directory itself, right click (or press Shift+F10), select Properties,
Security. Give full access to Users.

 

[Robert M Jones]

I assume it has something to do with access rights.

Open a command line window (Run... cmd), and navigate to the directory
where your program is; let's assume that directory is C:\Bible, then:
CD /D C:\Bible

Then run this command to show the access rights:
cacls .
and
cacls *.exe

Then post the output of these commands - you can cut and paste from the
command line window by: Alt+Space Edit Mark Shift+Arrow keys to
highlight, Enter to Copy, switch to your News Reader, Ctrl+V to paste.

Alternatively, you can inspect the access rights through the Graphical
User Interface in Explorer: navigate to the directory, highlight the
directory itself, right click (or press Shift+F10), select Properties,
Security. Give full access to Users.

Many thanks for your response.
I did the above in my User account where the program doesn't work, for
the exe file that flashes on and off quickly -

file = bmaster.exe
directory = c:\bmaster\

C:\BMASTER>cacls .
C:\BMASTER EveryoneOI)(CI)R
BUILTIN\AdministratorsOI)(CI)F
NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEMOI)(CI)F
MANSEOFFICE\Robert Admin:F
CREATOR OWNEROI)(CI)(IO)F
BUILTIN\UsersOI)(CI)R
BUILTIN\UsersCI)(special access
FILE_APPEND_DATA

BUILTIN\UsersCI)(special access
FILE_WRITE_DATA



C:\BMASTER>cacls bmaster.exe
C:\BMASTER\bmaster.exe Everyone:R
BUILTIN\Administrators:F
NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM:F
MANSEOFFICE\Robert Admin:F
BUILTIN\Users:R

--
Rev Robert M Jones, Wimborne Baptist Church, UK
http://www.wimborne-baptist.org.uk
Free trial of Mailwasher Pro - effective email spam filter - (commission
goes to our partners in Bulgaria)
http://fta.firetrust.com/index.cgi?id=420

 

[Michael Bednarek]

Many thanks for your response.
I did the above in my User account where the program doesn't work, for
the exe file that flashes on and off quickly -

file = bmaster.exe
directory = c:\bmaster\

When logged in as Administrator, execute the following command from the
directory C:\BMASTER
cacls . /e /g Users:f

This will give ordinary users on your system the rights to delete files
in that directory; it will not grant that right for existing files. I
suspect that BMASTER wants to write and delete some temporary files. Log
in as a non-Administrator and try it.

If that doesn't solve the problem, you have to issue the command
cacls *.* /e /g Users:f
which will grant full rights to Users to all files in that directory.

When trying as a non-Administrator, use Explorer to navigate to
C:\BMASTER and double-click on the program (bmaster.exe).

Out of interest: how do non-Administrators normally start the program?
By clicking on an icon? If so, the access rights to that icon might also
be restricted.

 

[Robert M Jones]

When logged in as Administrator, execute the following command from the
directory C:\BMASTER
cacls . /e /g Users:f

This will give ordinary users on your system the rights to delete files
in that directory; it will not grant that right for existing files. I
suspect that BMASTER wants to write and delete some temporary files. Log
in as a non-Administrator and try it.

If that doesn't solve the problem, you have to issue the command
cacls *.* /e /g Users:f
which will grant full rights to Users to all files in that directory.

When trying as a non-Administrator, use Explorer to navigate to
C:\BMASTER and double-click on the program (bmaster.exe).

Out of interest: how do non-Administrators normally start the program?
By clicking on an icon? If so, the access rights to that icon might also
be restricted.

Thanks I'll investigate those options.
Re your question - yes - normally I start the program with a quick
launch icon to a bat file - but I am investigating the actual exe file
for this query - if I can get that to work, then I will work my way
round the bat files and icons one by one - but they all seem to work
fine - its the final exe file which fails.

--
Rev Robert M Jones, Wimborne Baptist Church, UK
http://www.wimborne-baptist.org.uk
Free trial of Mailwasher Pro - effective email spam filter - (commission
goes to our partners in Bulgaria)
http://fta.firetrust.com/index.cgi?id=420

 

[Robert M Jones]

When logged in as Administrator, execute the following command from the
directory C:\BMASTER
cacls . /e /g Users:f

This will give ordinary users on your system the rights to delete files
in that directory; it will not grant that right for existing files. I
suspect that BMASTER wants to write and delete some temporary files. Log
in as a non-Administrator and try it.

If that doesn't solve the problem, you have to issue the command
cacls *.* /e /g Users:f
which will grant full rights to Users to all files in that directory.

When trying as a non-Administrator, use Explorer to navigate to
C:\BMASTER and double-click on the program (bmaster.exe).

Out of interest: how do non-Administrators normally start the program?
By clicking on an icon? If so, the access rights to that icon might also
be restricted.

Wunderbar - thanks - that is working now! Had to do both to get it to work.

--
Rev Robert M Jones, Wimborne Baptist Church, UK
http://www.wimborne-baptist.org.uk
Free trial of Mailwasher Pro - effective email spam filter - (commission
goes to our partners in Bulgaria)
http://fta.firetrust.com/index.cgi?id=420