MI4 - can't save games when running as non-administrator

[forestial]

Installed MI4 on XP SP2 Home. Running in an account with admin privileges, everything works including save/load.

 

When my kids run it from their (non-admin) accounts, the game runs but they cannot save. They type a name in one of the 'save slots'; no error appears but when they come back and try to Load, there is nothing in the save slot.

 

No save files ever show up in the 'saves' directory (except when running as an admin of course). I suspect the problem is that this directory is not writable except by an administrator, but XP Home won't let me open up write access to other users (I clear the read-only flag in the directory properties, but it is checked again next time I look at it.)

 

I tried setting the game icon to 'Run As' an account with admin privileges: it made no difference.

 

(Earlier I had to mess with permissions to some registry keys just to get the game to run at all. But I am past that problem now.)

 

 

Is anyone successfully doing this?

[Ray Jones]

(Earlier I had to mess with permissions to some registry keys just to get the game to run at all. But I am past that problem now.)

Well, maybe that causes your actual problem?

 

On another thought, I'd check the users write permission for the games directory, or the save-game directory in particular. Maybe you installed as Administrator and a normal user has only read permission and thus cannot write the file.

 

You may also try reformating all your hard disk drives to make sure you lose any data you ever had and then reinstall Windows.

 

And last but not least, try Linux and WINE, this way it works. XD

 

(No, seriously, check those read/write permissions. I assume blindly, that if you mess around with the registry, you know how to do that.)

[forestial]

Well, maybe that causes your actual problem?

 

On another thought, I'd check the users write permission for the games directory, or the save-game directory in particular. Maybe you installed as Administrator and a normal user has only read permission and thus cannot write the file.

 

...

 

 

Yes, it turned out to be the permissions on that 'saves' directory. XP Home does not normally allow adjustment of the ACLs which control the permissions (Security tab on the directory permissions is not visible, in contrast to XP Pro).

 

The solution was to boot up in safe mode, wherein the directory security can be adjusted. I granted 'Full Control' to the 'Users' group. Then rebooted back to normal mode, and now the kids can write to that directory so the saves work.

 

Evidently MI4's installer was written with the assumption that all users would be administrators - which is, unfortunately, true for most even now.