Failure to create Registry Key

I'm having a problem running an application in Windows 2000 Pro on my son's machine. I have a Kids user set up as a restricted user and the Administrator setup. No other users are setup (other that guests). I've installed a game for my son but it won't launch, I get an Error: Failed to create registry key for Descent 3. All other programs (Microsoft Office 2K, Kodak camera software, etc.) work fine. When I launch the game (Descent 3) logged on as Administrator it works fine. Any ideas?

I've tried to uninstall/reinstall but no luck. This is a fresh install of Windows 2000 Pro and I'm not that familiar with it. I've been running Win98, WinXP Home, & Mandrake 9.1 on my machine.

Mike

 

OK, I can go back and change the Kids user from a restricted user to a standard user and the game launches fine while logged on as kids. I was hoping to keep my children from hosing things by setting them up with a kids user name with restricted user rights.

Mike

 

You can still protect most of the PC.

Locate the game folder. Then right-click and open properties. Click the security tab and you should see the kids account listed with very restricted access. Click on "modify" and apply the changes. Changes will only take effect on that one folder.

If their account isn't listed in security, add it then make the above changes.

Depending on exactly what the game tries to do, that may fix them up so they can run it. If not, post back. And you will need to be logged on as an administrator to make the changes to folder security.

 

Hey Newt,

The kids account was not listed in the properties for the folder in which this game was installed so I added their account and then gave them all rights and ownership of the folder. I still get the "failure to create registry key" error when trying to launch the game if logged in as kids when they are a restricted user. As before, if I go back and change the kids account ot a standard user user all is fine.

Any other ideas?

Mike

 

Hey TonyT,

Thanks for replying. I'm at work right now but when I get home this evening I'll have another look and leave feedback on my progress.

Mike

 

One other thing you could do that will work unless the kid(s) are sharp enough to figure out all the pieces.

- Create a new user account. Give it the same name as the game and enough rights to run the game. Give it a password and again, use the same as the name of the game.

- DO NOT tell the kid(s) that this is a user account they could log on with.

- Create them a shortcut to the game. Right-click on the shortcut, select properties and then advanced. There is an option there for "Run as different user ". Check that then OK and apply and OK.

- Any time that shortcut is clicked, it will open a window giving the option to run as a different user (runas) and lines to enter the user name and password. They would pick from the dropdown the one with computername\username, put in the proper password, and the game would be running as if that user had started it rather than the Kids user that is logged on.

By using the game's name for username and password, they probably won't twig to the fact they now know a normal username and password to log on to the computer with but will think you just did something fancy to allow them to run the game. Probably.

And BTW - this works with 2K and XP. The original idea of runas was so an administrator could log on with a normal user account (less dangerous since you couldn't destroy the system by accident) but be able to do any adminstration that was needed by starting whatever utility/application with the admin account and admin rights.

 

Thanks Newt! Worked like a charm!

Mike

 

Excellent. Glad it worked for you.

There are a couple of ways to automate runas so the user does not need to enter a password (or even see what is happening) but they all either require you buy some software or do some script programming. Possible but not worth the effort unless you find your younger users have figured out how to abuse the system.