[DC] Can't save games if not admin

[njfed]

I posted this in the bug forum, but I would like to know if this is just me, or if the game is actually programmed this way.

I loaded the game logged in as my account, the Windows XP admin account. When my son plays logged in as his account, he does not have write access to the profiles directory and can't save games. There is no error. The save game just fails to write. The only way I found this was to try and create a Notepad doc in the profiles directory and it says he needs admin right to save there. The other DoW games did not have this problem. Can anyone confirm this?

[TBS]

Why dont you give him write access to that directory?

[njfed]

Is that how Relic deals with internal problems? By disabling security feature that are in place for a reason. I guess Relic learned nothing from the theft of Half-Life 2 source code from Value a few years back.

My son does not have admin rights for two reasons; I am a sys admin and he is just as smart as I am. Yes, I trust him. But enough about me. Let's talk about Relic and their strange programming practices.

[FerociousBeast]

I have this problem too. How exactly would I go about giving the other limited accounts who use my computer write access to the directory?

[TBS]

I am not Relic and cannot speak for their design decisions - this forum is here for fans to offer technical support to others having difficulties.

Personally, I have always found limited accounts to be more trouble than theyre worth so I dont know very much about their operation - I suggest you check the microsoft site for help on giving write access for a specific directory (I assume that this can be done, if it cant then you would have to install the game to a folder that has write access for limited accounts by default or upgrade the limited account to admin).

I note that there is a warning on the MS site that some programs dont work properly under limited accounts.

[general_ripper]

Is that how Relic deals with internal problems? By disabling security feature that are in place for a reason. I guess Relic learned nothing from the theft of Half-Life 2 source code from Value a few years back.

Yeah, Relic and just about every other company that writes software for Win32 platform. They assume users are going to run with full privs, an assumption with a good deal of merit, since most everyone does, including you apparently. If you want to complain to someone about this, start with Microsoft for reinforcing this moronic security posture. Relic's games work quite well as an unprivileged user, which is more than I can say for many others which force you to run as administrator.

In this case, the risk of disabling the "security feature" in question means your son can delete your saved games. Theoretically he could also craft a saved game which will cause DC to crash in a certain way which will let him gain control over the system when you load it. While your son might be smart, he probably isn't that smart, and if he is you've probably got more serious issues to think about. Up to you whether you can live with that risk.

@FerociousBeast: in Explorer, go to your DC directory, right-click the Profiles dir, go to Security tab, click Add, select the users you want to allow write access (or alternately just add the 'Users' group), OK, select the user(s) you added and toggle checkboxes next to 'modify' and 'write'.

[Black Hawk 101]

I have the same problem. I don't know much about admin and stuff like that but can you just make it so that one thing, like this game for instance, un-protected so that I can save my game.

[Moe]

Is that how Relic deals with internal problems? By disabling security feature that are in place for a reason. I guess Relic learned nothing from the theft of Half-Life 2 source code from Value a few years back.

My son does not have admin rights for two reasons; I am a sys admin and he is just as smart as I am. Yes, I trust him. But enough about me. Let's talk about Relic and their strange programming practices.

Uh-huh. In other news, we're not Relic. We're a bunch of unpaid volunteers trying to help other fans. So let's talk about how you don't rip into the guys who spend their free time trying to help you, shall we?