Restricted user

Hello all,

I need to get a fairly complicated Dolphin executable to run under very
restricted privileges.  It opens its shell and at least starts to make
an error entry, but that is so far incomplete.  At present, I can't tell
whether the log is simply not being flushed, or whether something deeper
is wrong.  I suspect the former.

A July 2003 post of Andy's raises the possible requirement of PowerUser
status for creating registry keys, which might be related to my problem.
         Here's hoping that does not mean that I have to yank all of the
registry accesses?? :(

More generally, any similar experience and/or takers on giving advice
for how to debug the problem?

Have a good one,

Bill

--
Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D.
[hidden email]

Bill Schwab wrote:

> A July 2003 post of Andy's raises the possible requirement of PowerUser
> status for creating registry keys, which might be related to my problem.
>          Here's hoping that does not mean that I have to yank all of the
> registry accesses?? :(

Without having checked it, I can't imagine how /any/ user would be able to use
/any/ Windows app if they can't read and write their personal area of the
registry.

> More generally, any similar experience and/or takers on giving advice
> for how to debug the problem?

Can you run the IDE as that user (or a similarly restricted throwaway user
account) ?  I think I remember that you can't /install/ Dolphin without
reasonably comprehensive "rights", but that you can just copy
the files and then run "manually".

    -- chris

Chris,

> Without having checked it, I can't imagine how /any/ user would be able to use
> /any/ Windows app if they can't read and write their personal area of the
> registry.

Agreed, but it was clearly a problem for Dolphin installations.  Also, I
might have placed the stuff in the "wrong area" - though the data in
question should be the same regardless of the user.  If there is a
problem, I will likely revert to INI files or simply create my own
configuration files.


> Can you run the IDE as that user (or a similarly restricted throwaway user
> account) ?  

I don't know, because I didn't want to install Dolphin as doing so might
mask the problem.  However, it seems a logical next step.


 > I think I remember that you can't /install/ Dolphin without
> reasonably comprehensive "rights", but that you can just copy
> the files and then run "manually".

That was another reason I didn't want to install Dolphin.  FWIW, I have
the same recollection.

Have a good one,

Bill

--
Wilhelm K. Schwab, Ph.D.
[hidden email]

Bill,
 
> A July 2003 post of Andy's raises the possible requirement of
> PowerUser status for creating registry keys, which might be related
> to my problem.          Here's hoping that does not mean that I have
> to yank all of the registry accesses?? :(

The problem referred to in that post was the failure of the unlock part
of an installation when running as a user with less than power user
status. It does seem that it is the act of *creating* a registry key
under the user root that is failing.

There is code in Development SessionManager>>registeredSerialNumbers:
(this method is removed during the install, I think) that does this:

regKey := RegKey userRoot createKey: self serialNumberRegistryKey.

The #createKey: call seems to fail for ordinary users. Maybe it is
acceptable to update "user" registry keys but it is just not possible
to create them. This might be an avenue to explore.

Best regards,


Andy Bower
Dolphin Support
www.object-arts.com