Windows XP, Games, and Administrator Privileges?

An anonymous reader asks: "I manage my kids' computer, running Windows XP Professional, with an iron fist. They have limited access rights as I do not want them accidentally deleting the wrong file or downloading trojan software. However, software products, particularly games, fight my user management schemes at every turn. Each user on the computer is member of the 'Gamers' group. This group has full access to the games directory, the place I install all of the game software. I did this since games often need to update configuration files or write save files. Despite these changes, I still run into problems. Our latest two games, Age of Mythology and Battlefield 1942, require administrator privileges irrespective of the file privileges. I have not been able to overcome the problem and it seems, based on Googling, that others are in the same boat. Fellow Slashdot readers, what have you done to overcome this problem?"

Comments

short answer

[nsebban]

1- Dual Boot (WinXp for you + Win98SE for your kids)
2- A ghost image of the win98SE partition
3- Let them play
4- Wait for them to say "Dad it doesn't work anymore !"
5- Restore your ghost backup
6- Goto 3

Seems a bit dub, but it works better and it's less a pain than managing XP user rights.

Same problem with my kids - different solution

[Captain Kirk]

I've a 10 and 8 year old who play Warcraft and Age of Mythology. My fix it to let them do what they want and accept the consequences it the system broke. Sure enough it wouldn't boot after a few months.

Rather than rush to fix it, I spent a week doing nothing but said I "was doing research into how to fix the problem." The 1 week without games was sufficiently traumatic that there's been no problem since.

Re:Same problem with my kids - different solution

[PainKilleR-CE]

Rather than rush to fix it, I spent a week doing nothing but said I "was doing research into how to fix the problem." The 1 week without games was sufficiently traumatic that there's been no problem since.

This is actually what drove me to learn how to do an OS reinstall. As time went on, each time Windows ate itself, my dad would take longer and longer to get around to fixing it. Eventually, I got sick of waiting and did it myself. Within about two months I had him in complete understanding of the beauty of keeping data and OS on seperate drives, and now, many years later, my dad calls me when he wants information on how to do something or advice on new hardware.

Re:Same problem with my kids - different solution

[4of12]

Exactly right on.

I agree with the earlier poster, too, who was motivated to learn how to re-build his computer after crashes because, well, no one else had time to do it.

I think that's a great way for kids to learn something practical as well as the moral lessons of actions/consequences, if you want something done you have to do it yourself, etc..

The double edged sword, of course, is that when your sharp kid learns the intricacies of re-installing the OS from scratch, getting the settings right, etc. that they'll be empowered to see the Internet in all its ugliness, too.

So the corollary is that, before you throw the installation CD and manuals and have your kid rebuild the computer, explain plainly the basic fact that much of the world is screwed up in these 23 different ways and that you'll see it all on the Internet.

Arbitrary ages of 18 ought to be replaced by "whatever age someone is able to figure out how to rebuild a computer" IMHO. Yes, there are some people who ought never to be exposed to some stuff no matter how old they are... The age of understanding concepts should be the threshhold for driving, voting, consuming harmful addictive substances, etc. rather than some X years.

secondary logon service

[happylight]

Use the secondary logon service. Right click on the game program short-cut, select properties, under the "Shortcut" tab click on advanced, then check the box that says "run with different credentials".

It'll prompt you for the administrator password when you run it.

Re:secondary logon service

[SurgeryByNumbers]

Let me give you some more details on WinXP that will let you work around having your kids login as admin.

1) Download (TweakUI) Powertools for WinXP from the Microsoft website.
2) Create an admin login with the rights required to play the game, and use TweakUI to disable that account. No one will be able to actually login as that account.
3) Set up the game to "run with different credentials," as outlinded above.

Regmon + Filemon

[EddWo]

Use Regmon and Filemon from sysinternals.com to discover which files/keys the program is trying to modify and is failing on. Then adjust the ACLs on those files/keys so that the Gamers group has write access.

One of the conditions for obtaining the "Designed for Windows XP" Logo is that the program must be capable of being run under a Limited user account. If MS's own software isn't capable of this then you ought to report it to them as a bug.

The situation with XP home which only has "Limited" and "Administrator" account types really does not help people adopt more secure working practices.

The situation ought to improve in future but at the moment it does not seem to be something that most developers test against.

Patches

[NexusTw1n]

Microsoft appear to have a patch for this problem, I don't know if that will fix it for you.

Other ideas include giving "Gamers" full access to the "Program Files" directory in case it's trying to write there rather than your games directory.

If that doesn't work then perhaps mail the CD back and ask for a refund. There is no reason any application, least of all a game should require admin rights for normal operation, and if it does, the software is not fit for the purpose it was sold for.

Re:Encourage your children in life, not games.

[Babbster]

I'm always amazed that in these modern times, with so many bicycles, motorcycles and cars, people still manage to care for and ride such high horses.

Re:Hrm.

[KDan]

More to the point, stop struggling and realise that windows is by design a system which will fall over itself after a long enough period of time, and you WILL have to reinstall it sometime. So stop trying to delay that moment, and make sure that you can do that easily. The previous suggestion about ghosting the system in a stable state is good, but not the best because you will still have to keep track of what important updates you hadn't done when you made the ghost image.

Probably the best solution would be to keep a CD-RW regularly updated with the entire list of drivers/service packs/updates that you need to install when you reinstall the computer, along with a list of the programs that must be reinstalled before any games (eg Office, any dev tools that you need, etc), and (this will be a shocker) teach your kids to do it!!! Then when the computer falls over, you can tell the kids that it's in part their fault, and that this is a good learning opportunity for them (and it is - you learn more about how a computer functions when rebuilding it from scratch than when using it), and so stick them on there for whatever time it takes and let them do it (under penalty of no gaming if they screw it up and you have to do it yourself, of course).

The result will be kids who know more about PCs than just gaming, who will not need to pester their friends/parents to get their computer(s) set up, and who will be more computer-literate than most of their age group. And don't worry about the task being 'too complicated'. Don't underestimate your kids, they will pick it up in no time, and by the time the next version of Windows comes along they'll probably be the ones giving you tips on how to install your PC.

Daniel

Re:educate / console / play outside

[karnal]

Why is this insightful?

The man wanted to know how to solve a problem. Granted, you give him a few good "alternatives", but that doesn't solve the problem.

It'd be like me saying "My car is old and doesn't run well -- what do I do to ensure it won't leave me stranded?" and you telling me "Ride a bike. It doesn't pollute and it's always ready to roll...."

Run as different user/Crack the games?

[rufo]

No, they don't. It says right on that page to "try logging in as an Administrator" before it says to install the fix.

The reason the games need this is because of the CD copy protection; they need to access the drive directly to be able to see whether the bad sectors/whatever hidden data they're looking for are there. You could try cracking the games and seeing if that helps, as I'm pretty sure that's the only they need Admin access - a good site for cracks is GameCopyWorld. I often use them because I'm a lazy bastard who doesn't want to risk ruining his (original!) CDs by switching them around all the time, and I've never had a problem with any of the cracks I've downloaded from there.

One other possible method.. Isn't there a way to have Windows "run as" a different user (ala +s on UNIX)? So you could have it run as some special Admin-priveleged user, while keeping them in the non-Admin account most of the time.