Problem using WB6 with multiple user accounts in Vista Home Premium

Hi Emilio. I'm running WB6 on multiple accounts WinXP SP2. Each account has been set to have admin privileges in the /control panel/user accounts settings. Only do this if you trust those users to make system changes. Also, the last user to change a windows logon or boot screen will take precedence so I don't have other users do these ones. Cheers, f

Chubs,

You can overcome the interface coming up black by right-clicking on the WindowBlinds icon and running it with administrative rights. Unfortunately, it doesn't solve my problem of using WB in standard user accounts. The only account that is currently being skinned is the admin account. Is this a bug in WB6 or am I just doing something wrong?

Regards,

Emilio

Well, I guess "It ain't just me".

I have the same problem on XPHomeSP2.

I've just now submitted a ticket to Stardock Support referencing this thread and asking them to get involved with it.

On my machine, yes it is user permission issues which I fix by manually changing the permissions. Hopefully that's the "wrong answer" and I've been an idiot. FYI the issue then re-appears on my machine when I do an update. You probably don't want to use that approach right now in case it complicates things for some reason in the event there's a better solution.

With any luck we've all done something wrong and official Stardock Support can tell me/us how to fix it.

Chubs39:



Good foresight on your part.   

Add to the list:

"Where did all these annoying little programs come from?"
"What the heck are all of these popups?"
"Why is my machine so slow?"
"What happened to my hard drive space?"
"Why do people get spam and email virus's from me?"

Admin mode is malware's friend.

Oops, got so hung up on my Admin mode speech that I forgot to mention that Stardock Support has already responded to my ticket. Just swapping info details right now, but kudos to Support for a prompt reasonable response.

Thank you everyone for bringing this issue to our attention.

Of course we do not expect everyone to use accounts with administrative access, but at the moment you will need to manually set file and folder permissions for files within the C:\Program Files\Stardock directory and subdirectories.

I have something which should set this up appropriately:
http://sd.stardock.com/mike/apps/stardock_access.bat

I am letting the developers know about this.

-Mike
[Stardock Support]

Wow, thanks Mike. Basically a 1 business day turnaround, with a tweak even. Pretty darned good I'd say.   

So has anyone used Mike's batch file - did it do the trick? It would be nice if we could provide some feedback before it all gets buried too far in the pile.

I don't really want to - the only way I could really test it would be to uninstall everything and start all over again, since I've already changed my permissions (the hard way of course, oh yay [smirk]) and I don't remember how they started out.

Please post any results.

Thanks for the responses folks. I'm out of the country on vacation right now, but once I get back I'll give the "fix" a try and let you know how it worked out.

-Emilio

I have the same prob can i get the batchfile in germann win xp sp2!

Metzkausen:

If I were you I'd contact Stardock support directly using the form located here:

WWW Link

and include a reference to this thread and ask them for a German version of the file. It would be more reliable than hoping Mike picks back up on this thread. I'd translate it myself but you've already proven your English to be much better than my German, as you've constructed an understandable line in English.    (Unless somebody around here knows an easy way to run a few English commands on a non-English O/S maybe? - might be useful general info.)

Gutentaag.

Ok, I've tried the batch file submitted by Mike. The short of it is that it didn't work as expected, which was to allow me to run separate instances of WindowBlinds for the various non-administrator users on my computer. It actually made things worse, as I now can't uninstall ANY of the object desktop items on my computer, because the system thinks I no longer have administrative rights (even on my admin account).

What the batch file tries to do is use the CACLS command to set permissions for all files in the c:\program files\stardock and public\documents\stardock folders (and subfolders) to full control. It worked to a certain degree, since I no longer have to run Stardock Central as an administrator in order to avoid the black and/or missing backgrounds we were getting before. So now what, Mike? I would like to start by unloading Windowblinds.

Regards,

Emilio

I sent the ticket back in.

I want to be sure I'm reading you right on a couple of points though:



You do mean regarding only the Stardock programs and directories, right?



I'm not sure which way this went - did it enable you to run Windowblinds, change skins properly, and retain different skins loaded under Non-Admin users?



(Ya I know, this is rapidly approaching the "Submit your own ticket" point, but I really think it would be valuable if we could get a publicly accessable tweak on this, and I'm pretty sure the uninstall problem is just a hiccup and can be taken care of. If it will help people utilize Limited User modes, I'm all for it. At some point though, probably soon....)

Sorry for the vaguely worded update. My Vista machine is currently setup with four accounts; an administrator account (w/ password) that is not routinely used, and three standard user accounts for my wife, my son and myself. These standard accounts are the ones used on a daily basis. I'm attempting to run this way in order to take advantage of the improved security in Vista.

Unfortunately, when I installed Windowblinds 6 on this machine it would only showup on the administrator account. On the "standard" accounts Windowblinds was not active and when I tried loading it, the UI would come up but would appear non-responsive. Not only would it appear non-responsive, but most of the window would not display properly, with a black background overlaying most of the window. However, once I switched back to the administrator account, the changes (switching skins, for example) made in the standard account would show up. The only improvement made by changing the folder priviledges with Mike's batch file is that the Windowblinds UI is rendered properly without having to resort to running as administrator, however it's unclear if that's because the latest update fixed that issue or whether it was the priviledges change. In any case, I'm still not able to use Windowblinds 6 on the standard accounts. The skin rendered is still the original Vista Aero.

What's the batch file has done, however is modified the rights to the Stardock folders in such a way that I'm unable to uninstall any of my Object Desktop items, starting with Windowblinds 6, but also including other items such as tweak Vista and the object editor. The message I get is that the items can't be removed because I don't have administrator rights. I'm pretty sure this is only affecting the Stardock items, although I haven't tried deleting any other programs.

I hope this clears things up.

Regards,

Emilio

Emilio -

If you ran the batch file, then updated Windowblinds, you likely need to run the batch file again to adjust the permissions, because the files changed by the update almost certainly have the problematic permission settings on them. That would explain why the standard accounts aren't working. If you updated Windowblinds, then ran the batch file, I'm surprised that part of it isn't working.

Also, as I read back through this I see that it hasn't clearly been stated that the batch file needs to be run while you're logged in under an Administrative account, not a Standard account. I imagine you already realized that, but just in case.

I think I see what's causing the uninstall issue, but I certainly want to let Mike have a go at that first. I don't want to muck up the waters.

Dave,

I did a clean install of Windowblinds, but because the files had been updated since the last time I had tried it (back in December), it's possible that the improvements to the UI were because of the update and not the permissions change. I can't remember if I was in the standard account or the admin account when I ran the batch file, but I'll try it again from the administrator account.

Also, I overcame the administrator error I was getting when I tried to uninstall Stardock programs by going into the properties tab and checking off "run as administrator". I'm not sure why that was necessary, as I had not had any problems before uninstalling programs, but in any case it worked and I deleted all of the Stardock components (including Stardock Central). Tomorrow I'll start from scratch and we'll see what happens.

Regards,

Emilio

Emilio: The batch file shouldn't change the owner on any files, it will just edit the access control lists for the Users group, granting full access only to the Stardock apps and theme folders.

Were you able to get things working better for you through a clean install?

-Mike
[Stardock Support]