Admin account required for all use on Vista?
By
houtex,
Posted on: 2009-05-30 08:07 in ALL ACCESS Gameplay Technical Issues Bugs
This seems to provide a good fix:
http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/wi...windows/?p=635
I followed these general steps, except I set the "Operating System Modes" to "None", so there is no XP compatibility override. Setting the RunAsInvoker flag does just what I wanted - COHUpdater.exe will run without a prompt for Admin credentials and, even better, will run with my limited account credentials.
This would probably cause problems when patches need to be downloaded and installed. I will modify NTFS permissions on the COH folder so that should not be an issue, but it may also work to just shut down when that error arises and relaunch using the Run As Administrator option.
The word 'update' is the issue, as I recall, as part of the file name of the CoHUpdater.exe file. Vista sees this, as well as other key words, and flags it for 'Admin' access.
I just tried it... renaming it to 'CoHU.exe' should solve the problem... until the next update that is.
Perhaps the Devs can change the name accordingly in later Issues... Yeah... soon(tm)
/update: Also, it may help to export the registry from the working Co* account to the kiddo one, so that it will be already set up, no updating.
//They are otherwise making it mandatory that '\City of Heroes' be used as a folder, no matter where else you put it. This, of course, is not cool, but whatever.
August 31, 2012. A Day that will Live in Infamy. Or Information. Possibly Influence. Well, Inf, anyway. Thank you, Paragon Studios, for what you did, and the enjoyment and camaraderie you brought.
This is houtex, aka Mike, signing off the forums. G'night all. - 10/26/2012
Well... perhaps I was premature about that whole 'signing off' thing... - 11-9-2012
Is it so hard to click one extra button?
Right click.
Run As Administrator.
???
Profit.
Thanks for that hint, houtex. It's sadly believable that a substring in the exe name is Vista's signal to force elevated privileges. I'll give that a try on one of the machines. I can leave the file with default Admin-only permission so that we should be aware (due to file write errors) the next time there's a real update for it.
It's not a button, Yosef, and my description does not seem to have been clear enough. Vista wanted to run CoH as an administrator without me asking for that.
That's not ok for software in general. In the case for my kids, they don't even know Admin credentials for their computers, and I was not about to hand that over for them to try a game.
Another thing to be aware of is that Vista believes that anything in the Program Files folder (both versions of the folder on x64 systems) requires Admin priveleges to run correctly.
Don't install the game to the default Program Files directory. Instead, create a folder such as Games on the C drive (or whatever drive you are installing the game on) and then install City of Heroes into that folder instead. For example, my installation path is now C:\Games\City of Heroes and the game doesn't ask for Admin credentials.
I haven't had to do any major updates to the game since I installed it, but hopefully it won't require the Admin credentials for it.
If it does, I'll just Run As Administrator with a right click, then switch to a different account and make sure it loads right. But it should at that point, which would work the same as if you did the update and then let the kids play on their own account.
Good luck.
If the game spit out 20 dollar bills people would complain that they weren't sequentially numbered. If they were sequentially numbered people would complain that they weren't random enough.
Black Pebble is my new hero.
My kids & I are running Vista on our computers. Is there no alternative to launching CoH with Administrator credentials? I understand there is a need to install updates from time to time, but there are alternatives like only using Admin credentials at those times, or granting write/modify permissions to the game install folder to specific non-Admin users.
Like other self-updating software, this one should not need total control of the computer for its normal use. In our case, the kids do not know Admin credentials for their computers.
I can configure the folder security so that CoH should be able to do everything it needs, but cohupdater.exe somehow requires Admin credentials. It's not the standard checkbox property to "Run As Administrator" either, that's unchecked.
Has anyone else gotten CoH to run on Vista with "least" privileges?