Jamie said:
Hi there,
This is just a general question of interest which has been prompted by
reading a post further down.
I have several games which say in the instruction manual that you need
administrator rights to be able to run the game. Any idea why Games
manufacturers do this? My brother has his own PC in his bedroom and I have
only set him up with a limited account due to him having a habit of trashing
the PC.
One example of this would be with the SIMS 2.
Surely they know most people will have limited accounts set up for children
wishing to play this game.
Any ideas why this happens?
Regards
They probably know, but don't care enough to learn to properly design
their games for a multi-user OS.
This is quite common if the software was designed for Win9x/Me, or
if it was intended for WinNT/2K/XP, but was improperly designed/coded.
Quite simply, the installation routine for this application doesn't
"know" how to handle individual user profiles, or the application tries
to make changes to "off-limits" sections of the registry. Quite often,
you can make this software available to other users by _copying_ the
Start Menu folder and Desktop folder shortcuts from the user profile
from which the software was installed in the corresponding folders in
the user profile(s) in which you'd like the software to be accessible.
If the application is something that can/should be made available to all
current and future users, copying the shortcuts into the corresponding
locations of the All Users profile will do the trick.
NOTE: This may not work if the software requires access to parts
of the hard drive and/or registry that are not normally accessible to
regular users. (This won't occur if the application was properly
written.) If this does prove to be the case, however, you're left with
two options: Either grant the necessary users appropriate higher access
privileges (either as Power Users or local administrators), 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
For some obscure reason, game and children's software developers in
particular seem to not understand WinXP's file security paradigm, and
require even limited users to have unnecessarily high privileges to
protected systems folders. For example, saved games are often stored in
a sub-folder under the game's folder within C:\Program Files - a place
where no inexperienced or limited user should have write permissions.
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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