andy said:
Like many we are having permissions problems installing and running
various external packages on XP Pro. As part of the investigation of
what and why it was noted that a colleagues personally owned laptop
running XP Home was not suffering. The department only has CDs and
licenses for XP Pro and will not consider XP Home.
My question: is it possible to cleanly remove the layer of permissions
from XP Pro in order to get file permission behaviour something like XP
Home?
No, not really. In point of fact, WinXP Home and WinXP Pro have nearly
the same security capabilities, but WinXP Home settings must be adjusted
in Safe Mode. It's seems likely that the one WinXP Home laptop that's
having no problems is probably running on the FAT32 file system, which
has no security capabilities. It may be that reformatting the WinXP Pro
systems to FAT32 (assuming that security and stability are of no
importance to you; I assume this is not for use in any business-critical
function.) will solve some of the problems you're having with these
poorly written applications. You IT department will know how to
properly configure the laptops so that the legacy applications work.
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.
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
Help us help you:
You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having
both at once. - RAH
