saving games problems

[techidave]

My kids are having problems saving their games under their user account (not admin).  They can play them, just not save them.  If they play the game under the user account it was installed under then all is well.  I have went in and given them read, write, and modify on that folder but that didn't help.

One of the games is Build a Lot by Hipsoft.  I looked on their website but didn't see any support options, nor did I find anything when I googled it.  They also have this same problem with a Sudoko game.  The games all run from the hard drive.


Running XP Pro SP3.  The wife and I are the only admins on this computer, the kids are standard users.

Any ideas??  Happy New Year!!

Dave

[gexecuter]

Try to make their user accounts administrators. Then login into their accounts and launch the games and see if you can save. My sister account has problems in using software that i installed as an administrator unless i make her account an administrator too.

[techidave]

I don't really want to make them admins.  They download music and play lots of online games.

I guess I could try it and see what happens.  I sure don't like this type of software that won't let all users run it properly.

[gexecuter]

I don't really want to make them admins.  They download music and play lots of online games.

I guess I could try it and see what happens.  I sure don't like this type of software that won't let all users run it properly.

-techidave (January 01, 2009, 08:32 AM)

Try what i told you and see what happens.

[wreckedcarzz]

My sister uses my laptop almost CONSTANTLY to play The Sims 2 (w/ expansions), and it *requires* her to be an Admin on Vista to even run.

Poor/lazy programming, IMO (not saying I could do better, but nonetheless).

[lanux128]

you can try this: right-click on the shortcut and choose "Run as admin" to see if the problem goes away.

you can also try this tool by Skrommel to create such shortcuts: RunAsTools.

Collect your system tools and run them as another user.

Features:
- Edit the ini-file to change the settings.
- Show or hide the window by doubleclicking the tray icon.
- Won't run as a user without a password.

[techidave]

I did add my daughter as admin and she reported that it did allow her to save.  I found a link just this morning about the run as tool but haven't tried that either.  Thanks Lanux for the link to Skrommel's tool.  I will look at that as well.

[f0dder]

techidave, try running the game as admin, and use sysinternals' "process monitor" (not "process explorer") and see where the game is storing the savegames - giving your children R/W access to those folders *should* let the game run as non-admin.

[techidave]

Thanks f0dder, I will give that a whirl!

[techidave]

As it turns out it was saving it to C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\HipSoft\Buildalot folder.  I have given them read/write access and will have them give it a try.

Apparently not all users have read/write access to this folder??

[techidave]

By the way, I found that Process Manger is not for the weak.      There is a lot of info in there!

I ended up searching with Everything and found the location.

Now to just have the kids give it a whirl.

[f0dder]

Yeah, it's a pretty darn powerful tool, and if you don't set up sensible filters, you'll be swamped with information . But once you learn to master it, it's very useful for troubleshooting stupidly-behaving applications.

Hope it works for you!