Need to be administrator to play Doom3

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.doom (More info?)

Hello. We have Windows XP Pro SP2. We installed Doom3 a while back.
A regular user (limited account) could play Doom3. Then all of a
sudden we started getting error messages that you have to be an
administrative user to play this game. I'm not sure what changed. It
could have been the upgrade of the OS to SP2. Other games, like Sims2
and MS FLight Similator complained as well. Anyone else run into
this? I'd hate to make the "young ones" that user this machine into
administrators. That'd be terribly insecure. Advice will be greatly
appreciated.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.doom (More info?)

"Joe Wasik" <joewasik@msn.com> wrote in message
news:986b88e6.0410171548.55d3915@posting.google.com...
> Hello. We have Windows XP Pro SP2. We installed Doom3 a while back.
> A regular user (limited account) could play Doom3. Then all of a
> sudden we started getting error messages that you have to be an
> administrative user to play this game. I'm not sure what changed. It
> could have been the upgrade of the OS to SP2. Other games, like Sims2
> and MS FLight Similator complained as well. Anyone else run into
> this? I'd hate to make the "young ones" that user this machine into
> administrators. That'd be terribly insecure. Advice will be greatly
> appreciated.

Try going to the directories the games are installed in and giving users
full control over those directories on the security settings tab in the
directory properties.

hth.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.doom (More info?)

"Blahguy" <z@z.z> wrote in message news:<4173c8e6$0$25592$5a62ac22@per-qv1-newsreader-01.iinet.net.au>...
> "Joe Wasik" <joewasik@msn.com> wrote in message
> news:986b88e6.0410171548.55d3915@posting.google.com...
> > Hello. We have Windows XP Pro SP2. We installed Doom3 a while back.
> > A regular user (limited account) could play Doom3. Then all of a
> > sudden we started getting error messages that you have to be an
> > administrative user to play this game. I'm not sure what changed. It
> > could have been the upgrade of the OS to SP2. Other games, like Sims2
> > and MS FLight Similator complained as well. Anyone else run into
> > this? I'd hate to make the "young ones" that user this machine into
> > administrators. That'd be terribly insecure. Advice will be greatly
> > appreciated.
>
> Try going to the directories the games are installed in and giving users
> full control over those directories on the security settings tab in the
> directory properties.
>
> hth.

Thanks for your suggestion. I tried that and also doing the same to
respective registry keys. None of that mattered. I did find a
work-around, though, which was using the operating system's "run as"
feature. But that's a hassle to setup and I'd rather find out what
the problem is. Do you know if this admin condition is normal?

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.doom (More info?)

The levers of mind-change. joewasik@msn.com (Joe Wasik) wrote:
>"Blahguy" <z@z.z> wrote in message news:<4173c8e6$0$25592$5a62ac22@per-qv1-newsreader-01.iinet.net.au>...
>> "Joe Wasik" <joewasik@msn.com> wrote in message
>> news:986b88e6.0410171548.55d3915@posting.google.com...
>> > Hello. We have Windows XP Pro SP2. We installed Doom3 a while back.
>> > A regular user (limited account) could play Doom3. Then all of a
>> > sudden we started getting error messages that you have to be an
>> > administrative user to play this game. I'm not sure what changed. It
>> > could have been the upgrade of the OS to SP2. Other games, like Sims2
>> > and MS FLight Similator complained as well. Anyone else run into
>> > this? I'd hate to make the "young ones" that user this machine into
>> > administrators. That'd be terribly insecure. Advice will be greatly
>> > appreciated.
>>
>> Try going to the directories the games are installed in and giving users
>> full control over those directories on the security settings tab in the
>> directory properties.
>>
>> hth.
>
>Thanks for your suggestion. I tried that and also doing the same to
>respective registry keys. None of that mattered. I did find a
>work-around, though, which was using the operating system's "run as"
>feature. But that's a hassle to setup and I'd rather find out what
>the problem is. Do you know if this admin condition is normal?

Now that you've set all the permissions to what you think they ought to be
with no joy, I suggest you try uninstalling then reinstalling the game.

The upgrade to SP2 could be the culprit and you'd have to be in the SP2
development team to know what all it does or may do. You can save your
present game and its succession of saved games by copying the ..\Doom
3\savegame\ directory's contents out of the directory tree then restoring
it to the reinstalled version.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.doom (More info?)

"Joe Wasik" <joewasik@msn.com> wrote in message
news:986b88e6.0410182208.56d4c5fc@posting.google.com...
> "Blahguy" <z@z.z> wrote in message
> news:<4173c8e6$0$25592$5a62ac22@per-qv1-newsreader-01.iinet.net.au>...
>> "Joe Wasik" <joewasik@msn.com> wrote in message
>> news:986b88e6.0410171548.55d3915@posting.google.com...
>> > Hello. We have Windows XP Pro SP2. We installed Doom3 a while back.
>> > A regular user (limited account) could play Doom3. Then all of a
>> > sudden we started getting error messages that you have to be an
>> > administrative user to play this game. I'm not sure what changed. It
>> > could have been the upgrade of the OS to SP2. Other games, like Sims2
>> > and MS FLight Similator complained as well. Anyone else run into
>> > this? I'd hate to make the "young ones" that user this machine into
>> > administrators. That'd be terribly insecure. Advice will be greatly
>> > appreciated.
>>
>> Try going to the directories the games are installed in and giving users
>> full control over those directories on the security settings tab in the
>> directory properties.
>>
>> hth.
>
> Thanks for your suggestion. I tried that and also doing the same to
> respective registry keys. None of that mattered. I did find a
> work-around, though, which was using the operating system's "run as"
> feature. But that's a hassle to setup and I'd rather find out what
> the problem is. Do you know if this admin condition is normal?

I just tried that with another game that said the user needed admin rights
to the folder (Homeworld 2), gave the Users full control of the folder, and
then it worked fine.
Other users on this machine can play Doom3 with no problem, except they
could not use the quicksave because they did not have permissions to write
to or modify files, so I changed that.
Are you sure you sure you selected (or added) Users in the security tab
before changing the permissions? Probably easiest to give them full control
over the folder.
Using XP pro SP2 with latest patches.
What is the exact message?

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.doom (More info?)

Thanks again for the suggestions. However, the error that I'm getting
is not any kind of "access denied" or "read-only" or "cannot write".
When the games Doom3, FS2004, Sims2 are launched I get an immediate
message that only an Administrator can run those programs. Those
games ran fine before SP2. To test your point, I logged in as the
non-admin user and created files in the savegames folder -- no
problem.

To make matters worse, my Windows XP SP2 now has also lost the ability
to do a right-click on a folder (files still work). It takes many
minutes (if ever) before the dialog box pops up. Microsoft has some
suggestions for this error (unlike my Doom3 problem) but,
unfortunately, none of those ideas worked.

At this point all I can say is to please do not install SP2. It's
just an undiscovered problem waiting to be found.

"Blahguy" <z@z.z> wrote in message news:<417626fe$0$23019$5a62ac22@per-qv1-newsreader-01.iinet.net.au>...
> "Joe Wasik" <joewasik@msn.com> wrote in message
> news:986b88e6.0410182208.56d4c5fc@posting.google.com...
> > "Blahguy" <z@z.z> wrote in message
> > news:<4173c8e6$0$25592$5a62ac22@per-qv1-newsreader-01.iinet.net.au>...
> >> "Joe Wasik" <joewasik@msn.com> wrote in message
> >> news:986b88e6.0410171548.55d3915@posting.google.com...
> >> > Hello. We have Windows XP Pro SP2. We installed Doom3 a while back.
> >> > A regular user (limited account) could play Doom3. Then all of a
> >> > sudden we started getting error messages that you have to be an
> >> > administrative user to play this game. I'm not sure what changed. It
> >> > could have been the upgrade of the OS to SP2. Other games, like Sims2
> >> > and MS FLight Similator complained as well. Anyone else run into
> >> > this? I'd hate to make the "young ones" that user this machine into
> >> > administrators. That'd be terribly insecure. Advice will be greatly
> >> > appreciated.
> >>
> I just tried that with another game that said the user needed admin rights
> to the folder (Homeworld 2), gave the Users full control of the folder, and
> then it worked fine.
> Other users on this machine can play Doom3 with no problem, except they
> could not use the quicksave because they did not have permissions to write
> to or modify files, so I changed that.
> Are you sure you sure you selected (or added) Users in the security tab
> before changing the permissions? Probably easiest to give them full control
> over the folder.
> Using XP pro SP2 with latest patches.
> What is the exact message?

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.doom (More info?)

On 20 Oct 2004 22:20:36 -0700, joewasik@msn.com (Joe Wasik) wrote:

>Thanks again for the suggestions. However, the error that I'm getting
>is not any kind of "access denied" or "read-only" or "cannot write".
>When the games Doom3, FS2004, Sims2 are launched I get an immediate
>message that only an Administrator can run those programs. Those
>games ran fine before SP2. To test your point, I logged in as the
>non-admin user and created files in the savegames folder -- no
>problem.
>
>To make matters worse, my Windows XP SP2 now has also lost the ability
>to do a right-click on a folder (files still work). It takes many
>minutes (if ever) before the dialog box pops up. Microsoft has some
>suggestions for this error (unlike my Doom3 problem) but,
>unfortunately, none of those ideas worked.
>
>At this point all I can say is to please do not install SP2. It's
>just an undiscovered problem waiting to be found.
>
>"Blahguy" <z@z.z> wrote in message news:<417626fe$0$23019$5a62ac22@per-qv1-newsreader-01.iinet.net.au>...
>> "Joe Wasik" <joewasik@msn.com> wrote in message
>> news:986b88e6.0410182208.56d4c5fc@posting.google.com...
>> > "Blahguy" <z@z.z> wrote in message
>> > news:<4173c8e6$0$25592$5a62ac22@per-qv1-newsreader-01.iinet.net.au>...
>> >> "Joe Wasik" <joewasik@msn.com> wrote in message
>> >> news:986b88e6.0410171548.55d3915@posting.google.com...
>> >> > Hello. We have Windows XP Pro SP2. We installed Doom3 a while back.
>> >> > A regular user (limited account) could play Doom3. Then all of a
>> >> > sudden we started getting error messages that you have to be an
>> >> > administrative user to play this game. I'm not sure what changed. It
>> >> > could have been the upgrade of the OS to SP2. Other games, like Sims2
>> >> > and MS FLight Similator complained as well. Anyone else run into
>> >> > this? I'd hate to make the "young ones" that user this machine into
>> >> > administrators. That'd be terribly insecure. Advice will be greatly
>> >> > appreciated.
>> >>
>> I just tried that with another game that said the user needed admin rights
>> to the folder (Homeworld 2), gave the Users full control of the folder, and
>> then it worked fine.
>> Other users on this machine can play Doom3 with no problem, except they
>> could not use the quicksave because they did not have permissions to write
>> to or modify files, so I changed that.
>> Are you sure you sure you selected (or added) Users in the security tab
>> before changing the permissions? Probably easiest to give them full control
>> over the folder.
>> Using XP pro SP2 with latest patches.
>> What is the exact message?


Running with SP2, no problems at all.

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.games.doom (More info?)

"Joe Wasik" <joewasik@msn.com> wrote in message
news:986b88e6.0410202120.1cc4417b@posting.google.com...
> Thanks again for the suggestions. However, the error that I'm getting
> is not any kind of "access denied" or "read-only" or "cannot write".
> When the games Doom3, FS2004, Sims2 are launched I get an immediate
> message that only an Administrator can run those programs. Those
> games ran fine before SP2. To test your point, I logged in as the
> non-admin user and created files in the savegames folder -- no
> problem.
>
> To make matters worse, my Windows XP SP2 now has also lost the ability
> to do a right-click on a folder (files still work). It takes many
> minutes (if ever) before the dialog box pops up. Microsoft has some
> suggestions for this error (unlike my Doom3 problem) but,
> unfortunately, none of those ideas worked.
>
> At this point all I can say is to please do not install SP2. It's
> just an undiscovered problem waiting to be found.
>

Just wanted to clarify the exact message you were getting, as I was getting
a message that told me Administrative rights to the folder was needed.
You may be able to fix this by going to "Run" on the start menu and typing
"gpedit.msc", then having a poke arount those settings.
I had a couple of annoyances with SP2, but nothing major.
Is it practical for you to uninstall SP2?
How about as restoring a system restore point from before SP2.
I could only suggest you try asking in a MS WinXP group about allowing users
to run programs, but in all honesty allowing them to execute programs in the
directory should probably work.
I assume you have checked for spyware, trojans etc..
Only other suggestion would be a fresh OS install, then patches.


Good luck