Win2k user settings

[Edame]

My completely computer illiterate family asked me to sort their PC out after they bloated it with virii and spyware and all kinds of crap, so I formatted and installed Win2K. I had hoped that I could assign them usernames and set myself as admin in an attempt to limit the damage they can do, but it's not going so well.

I have them all set as power users, but they still aren't able to use half of the applications I've installed for them. Red Alert 2 won't load unless the admin is logged on, Openoffice.org is the same. I've set the permissions on the apps and folders but still get the same messages, but some of the progs just won't run on anything but admin. I thought the whole idea of these settings were to allow people to run programs, but not install things that will change the system.

Is there some application that makes it easier to manage programs and who can use them, or is it just general suckiness on Windows?

[marcus]

Certain programmes require access to folders that may only be accessible to someone with administrative rights. Im not sure of a way around this other than granting the users the privaledges that the program requires, which will no doubt go against what you was trying to achieve. Ill give it some more thought though.

[Papercut]

... I agree, it will most likely be down to file permissions for the problem applications. This isn't really Windows 2000' fault, its up to each installer to set the file permissions correctly.

You can fix some problems like this by trying to install as a power user instead of an administrator.

Depending on how you've organised your user groups, you could probably just give 'modify' rights to the 'power users' group for each directory containing an application that is causing problems. You might get away with just giving them read permissions, which would be even better. The only real fix is to look at each application in turn.

There might be other problems though, such as applications needing certain access to parts of the registry, wanting to start services, or wanting to update bits of Windows itself.

It is possible to automate this process with security policies, but for a single desktop machine its more trouble than its worth.

[Edame]

I think it is something to do with file associations, but this is just more hassle than it's worth, as I don't want to have to do all of this for every application they are going to want to install. I guess I'll revert back to one admin logon for all, and just keep the AV and anti-spyware progs running regularly.

[Valken]

Where possible you should install programs as power user if they're "for" a poweruser. The problem lies in said programs being not strictly designed for the file permissions based file system win2k uses.