Harpoon ultimate commanders update restricts user access

[kisshu]

when i install the latest patch for windows ultimate commanders edition my standard user account is no longer able to launch the harpoon ultimate edition without administrator privileges.

[zakblood]

all games, or at least a very high amount won't run without administrator privileges, from a administrator account, without this, some won't even install, and while some may install and run, most won't, as without permissions, it can't use certain parts of the drive, like temp or other areas etc, and without these, the game, almost any won't have the ability to work.

[kisshu]

Most games that are implemented correctly do not require admin accounts to play; all user data is kept separate from the system part of the game engine for the user account and in some instances installing the game to a non-system drive will solve the problem.
Games usually ask if you would like to create icons for other users to play the game -thus do not require users to have elevated privileges to play the game from a standard user account- In fact i run harpoon 97 from a standard account starcraft,fallout iii, vampire bloodlines dosbox games as well many many more - i wouldn't make excuses for poor developer implementation it just encourages sloppiness. Yes installing a game/software does require an admin account in most cases but not to play it if it is specified that other users can run the program; otherwise no one would be able to use a standard account and run programs at all.[8D]

[TonyE]

If we want to get pedantic, the game itself doesn't require admin priveleges, it is the Matrix serial number checker that does. It has this strange concept that it should write to the HKLM hive.

[kisshu]

so how does that work- how does checking the serial number require elevated privilages? isn't there a way to virtualize the serial number check or set a security descriptor thats denying access; waht causes the process to fail the serial check in a standard account? I also noticed a number of registry keys that are modified in the hklm software classes harpoongame... on start of ultimate commanders edition is that an issue for virtualization as well? how would you go about enabling virtualization for this game so it runs on a standard account? would i need to create the registry keys in the user hklm sofware and classes hive first and then enable virtualization of the process through task manager??

[TonyE]

ORIGINAL: kisshu

so how does that work- how does checking the serial number require elevated privilages? isn't there a way to virtualize the serial number check or set a security descriptor thats denying access; waht causes the process to fail the serial check in a standard account? I also noticed a number of registry keys that are modified in the hklm software classes harpoongame... on start of ultimate commanders edition is that an issue for virtualization as well? how would you go about enabling virtualization for this game so it runs on a standard account? would i need to create the registry keys in the user hklm sofware and classes hive first and then enable virtualization of the process through task manager??

I didn't write the serial number checker, that was provided by Matrix so I can't answer that (if the question was directed at me). That said, I do believe you could leverage UAC virtualization to take care of that.

What the game itself attempts to do is register some of the saved game filetypes via the HKCR hive (bad idea). I think that will auto-failover to the HKCU if HKLM fails but haven't checked recently enough to remember.

Is there something preventing you from running the game with administrative permissions? Just curious.

[kisshu]

Thanks for helping out you are the guy to talk to thank you... so i think we can figure this out you know so much. But I'm trying to fiqure out why this program isn't virtualizing properly in a standard account can you find out more about the serial checker that could be the key; also if you added vista to the program manifest for winharp32 that would exclude it from virtualization - just thowing a thought out. I want to ask you how to leverage uac to take care of the virualiization problem but i think your probably going to have to find out how the serial checker interacts first. it must be integrated into winharp32; you know the game engine so that should be able to virtualize. In the mean time i tried a few things blind like enabling virtualization for the process (serial checker still errors out). I think it would be great to get this game to virtualize properly -the other games do.
I just hate running programs from elevated privlages and i like thing to work properly - its fun to figure this stuff out and fix it. I don't like having to type in my admin everytime i want to execute from a user account and i don't use my admin account accept for administration- and a program running in my user account should behave properly and virtualize global calls to the registry and %programfiles% to answer you question this will prevent me from enjoying the game until i find a solution. I think were close to solving this one - thanks

[TonyE]

Thanks for keeping at it . I can't put more time into it right now but the serial number checking is done by hccrez.exe so you could try tinkering there.