Is it possible?

[mark]

Archived from groups: alt.games.thief-dark-project (More info?)

I am an adminsitrator on the Windows XP Home system. A user on the same
system wants to play the game that was recently installed. When he clicks on
the game icon he receives an error message that he needs administrator's
account to be able to play that game. Can I make him administrator just for
that game? Is there any way to allow him to play the game but not allowing
making changes in the computer system?

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.thief-dark-project (More info?)

"Mark" <REMOVEdxt45@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:7j2Hc.13319$oW6.3054073@twister.nyc.rr.com...
> I am an adminsitrator on the Windows XP Home system. A user on the same
> system wants to play the game that was recently installed. When he clicks
on
> the game icon he receives an error message that he needs administrator's
> account to be able to play that game. Can I make him administrator just
for
> that game? Is there any way to allow him to play the game but not allowing
> making changes in the computer system?
>
>
>
right click on the icon, there should be a 'run as...' option. you can
select which user is 'officially' using the software. I don't know if the
user name and password needs to be reentered every time though.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.thief-dark-project (More info?)

Mark wrote:

> account to be able to play that game. Can I make him administrator just for
> that game? Is there any way to allow him to play the game but not allowing
> making changes in the computer system?

This question should really go in a WindowsXP-related newsgroup: that where
the experts are.

If you give away administrator rights (by means of as RunAs ...) you will have
to rely on the program in question to protect your system. And games aren't
exactly built to that kind of specification.

Does the game allow manipulation of files? Say, save file somewhere? If so,
the player can overwrite system files -- though not with anything he decides.

Does it allow some kind of escape from the game to the opeating system?
Console window? If so, the user may be sysadmin in that environment. Windows
tools? If those tools can be modified, then the user can run any program
as admin.

Are there any easy buffer-overflow attacks against the program? If so,
the user will become unrestricted sysadm in a second or two. Is that important
to avoid?

I can't imagine why a game should require sysadm rights: you better find out
first what it does, and (from the game documentation) if there is any way around it.
That is, if the role of sysadm is important to maintain. Perhaps the game is wrong:
perhaps all it requires is a 'PowerUser'. If so, you could alter the users rights
to those. Or, was the game installed as Administrator? If so, try to uninstall it,
and reinstall it with lower rights.

--
Anders Thulin ath*algonet.se http://www.algonet.se/~ath

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.thief-dark-project (More info?)

On Thu, 08 Jul 2004 06:22:55 GMT, Anders Thulin
<ath_no_spam_please@algonet.se> wrote:

>Mark wrote:
>
>> account to be able to play that game. Can I make him administrator just for
>> that game? Is there any way to allow him to play the game but not allowing
>> making changes in the computer system?
>
> This question should really go in a WindowsXP-related newsgroup: that where
>the experts are.
>
> If you give away administrator rights (by means of as RunAs ...) you will have
>to rely on the program in question to protect your system. And games aren't
>exactly built to that kind of specification.
>
> Does the game allow manipulation of files? Say, save file somewhere? If so,
>the player can overwrite system files -- though not with anything he decides.
>
> Does it allow some kind of escape from the game to the opeating system?
>Console window? If so, the user may be sysadmin in that environment. Windows
>tools? If those tools can be modified, then the user can run any program
>as admin.
>
> Are there any easy buffer-overflow attacks against the program? If so,
>the user will become unrestricted sysadm in a second or two. Is that important
>to avoid?
>
> I can't imagine why a game should require sysadm rights: you better find out
>first what it does, and (from the game documentation) if there is any way around it.
>That is, if the role of sysadm is important to maintain. Perhaps the game is wrong:
>perhaps all it requires is a 'PowerUser'. If so, you could alter the users rights
>to those. Or, was the game installed as Administrator? If so, try to uninstall it,
>and reinstall it with lower rights.

AFAICS, there's no way for multiple users to play separate Thief 3
campaigns on a single computer even if they have admin rights.

Thief 3 uses a single HKLM registry key to point to the save games, so
even if you can get the game working under different logins, the save
games will overwrite one another. There's no way to use some naming
convention to separate the saves since T3 doesn't let you choose your save
game names either.

Perhaps do a parallel install of XP into another drive or partition and
boot into separate XPs to play the game. Not too eloquent a solution, but
it would work.

--
Michael Cecil
http://home.comcast.net/~macecil/

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.thief-dark-project (More info?)

"Mark" <REMOVEdxt45@yahoo.com> wrote in message news:<7j2Hc.13319$oW6.3054073@twister.nyc.rr.com>...
> I am an adminsitrator on the Windows XP Home system. A user on the same
> system wants to play the game that was recently installed. When he clicks on
> the game icon he receives an error message that he needs administrator's
> account to be able to play that game. Can I make him administrator just for
> that game? Is there any way to allow him to play the game but not allowing
> making changes in the computer system?


I'm no expert.. but lemme guess, goto the thief installation folder
and change the security settings, give "read & execute" permissions to
everyone, possible "write" as well cos the game might try to save some
config locally
see if the game can run this way. then check the "Document and
settings" folder to see if the save game folder has been created for
that user

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.thief-dark-project (More info?)

Mark wrote:
> I am an adminsitrator on the Windows XP Home system. A user on the same
> system wants to play the game that was recently installed. When he clicks on
> the game icon he receives an error message that he needs administrator's
> account to be able to play that game. Can I make him administrator just for
> that game? Is there any way to allow him to play the game but not allowing
> making changes in the computer system?
>
>
>

Yes as far as I know on Win 2000 pro which is pretty similar in this
case you can install programs under the users account -make him
administrator for these five minutes or so in CP-->Users and
Passwords-->Users - then after the install boot back into your admin
account and assign him back to a normal or restricted user account.

You may also wish to configure the game before you do that.

You can further restrict rights to modify or write to a drive or a
specific folder on individual basis. The opposite is true too, but this
is really a question for XP/2000 newsgroup to go into detail, I don't
want to be responsible for buggering up your system.
Hope this helps.

Barnaby

--
Democracy has yet to be achieved.

 

[mark]

Archived from groups: alt.games.thief-dark-project (More info?)

Thanks for your replies. I did post this issue at windowsxp.help_and_support
group but nobody replied there. I then posted it here, in the group for
that game. It is strange that the game requires administrator account to
PLAY it.
To clerify the issue, I will not play the game. If we overcome this problem
it will be played by that one user only.




"Mark" <REMOVEdxt45@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:7j2Hc.13319$oW6.3054073@twister.nyc.rr.com...
> I am an adminsitrator on the Windows XP Home system. A user on the same
> system wants to play the game that was recently installed. When he clicks
on
> the game icon he receives an error message that he needs administrator's
> account to be able to play that game. Can I make him administrator just
for
> that game? Is there any way to allow him to play the game but not allowing
> making changes in the computer system?
>
>
>

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.thief-dark-project (More info?)

Mark wrote:

> I am an adminsitrator on the Windows XP Home system. A user on the same
> system wants to play the game that was recently installed. When he clicks on
> the game icon he receives an error message that he needs administrator's
> account to be able to play that game. Can I make him administrator just for
> that game? Is there any way to allow him to play the game but not allowing
> making changes in the computer system?

Just poked around on the forums for you.
http://forums.ionstorm.com/index.php?showtopic=210765

All the information you need should be there.