Win7 user is admin but cannot install programs

[techidave]

Now that I am deploying Win7 Pro 32 bit at my school, I have noticed that my staff cannot install any software or anything else that requires admin privileges.  The are set as an admin on their machine.  UAC is turned off.  I have tried "run as administrator".  If I log in as the administrator on the local machine, I can install it.

I ending up getting an error like "invalid short file name username.user".   It seems that most of the problems come when the machine is on a domain... which we are.  The fixes all talk about changing a registry key from a domain/profiles to %userprofiles%username.

My question is why does this happen (if anyone knows)?  And is there anything that I can do to keep it from happening during the setup of the machine?  They are clean installs, no upgrades.

thanks in advance,

Dave

[Stoic Joker]

Some installers (like the one Adobe Acrobat uses) insist on having a cow if the documents folder isn't on LM. Quickest way out in a pinch is to log into a local admin account and try running the installer. Not a grand solution for a large number of machines, but it should at least confirm the cause of the issue.

For the rest creat an account for the IT staff to use, and give it its own GPO so the redirect policies don't apply (so the accounts folders stay on LM, and the installer doesn't whine). That way you can complete the installs without taking a chance on hosing the production GPs.

[techidave]

Thanks for the heads up, SJ.  I will create a seperate GPO that does just what you suggested.

[40hz]

Stoic beat me to the punch with the admin user/GPO suggestion.  

BTW - Did you know you can also "push" an installation to a large group of machines using only a GPO if you're running AD and the app has an MSI installer?  (There are also dedicated programs to do it even more easily.) If you ever need to do the same install on a bunch of machines, it's worth the effort. Check out this article for details.