Users on XP Home

[Kev Sharratt]

Hi

I have a new PC which came with XP Home (I was used to Win 98SE) & when I started it I had the option to set up different users. This seemed like a good idea myself my wife & our 2 girls could all have their own desktop's, so I set up myself and my wife as administrators & the girls as users

My daughter wanted to play the sims so whilst I was logged on in my name, I installed it. My daughter could not find it in her programs and when I logged on as her, found the 'exe' file and double clicked it, it would not open. So I uninstalled the program, logged in as my daughter and tried to load it, it asked for the administrators password (I never set one up) and would not install.

Should I make my daughter an administrator load the program in her name and then make her a user again?

I'm sure I'm missing something here it should be easier than this


Any advice would be very helpful


thanks
:confused:

[Midknyte]

you could change her to an admin, but that would be giving her way too much power.

don't let the autoplay run when you install the program. go into the cd and find the setup file (setup.exe, etc.). right-click on the setup file and then click "run as". choose to run as your account. It should install just fine after that. If you didn't set a password, try leaving it blank.

[Rocketmech]

I get this same software install problem on occasion , lazy software programming I guess. I just manually drag and drop a shortcut or copy the file to the Desktop and Program Menus in Explorer for the users ,
C:\Documents and Settings\ your daughters profile\Desktop...and/ or... Startmenu\Programs

When using the "Run As" , use the drop down and select your name and insert your password.

[gjimene2]

hey, since you didn't setup a password for the administrator.

then the password is a blan field ;)

[Kev Sharratt]

Hi thanks for the advice

I tried a blank field

I tried giving myself a password & using that. It then installs it in my program listing & my daughter cannot see or if I find the 'exe' file on the hard drive, start the game

I have managed to sort of solve this but its a mess about considering that this is windows XP the must up to date version!!

What I have done is make my daughters adminstrators, install sims delux & then unleased on both their set ups (install each one twice) and then make my daughters limited users again

Now the games will start and play but they will not let my daughters save what they have done. I am trying to get hold of EA tech support on the web but they are closed. I will try them again tomorrow


thanks again

Kev

[Rocketmech]

You shouldn't have to install it twice, just copy or make a shortcut to the .exe file in the C:\ Documents and Settings\All Users\Desktop folder.
Open My Computer, select Folders from the menu bar. In the left panel , browse to C:\Program files and find the Sims folder, then locate the .exe file in the righthand panel. In the lefthand panel browse to C:\ Documents and Settings\All Users\Desktop . Now right click the Sims. exe file and drag it to the \Desktop folder , select "make a shortcut here" . There , now you have a shortcut on all users desktops.
If you want you can do the same in C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs .

This is what the install program should have done . ;)

Also, you might want to run Xp's prevent a forgotten password wizard , to make a password recovery disk. Open Control Panel>User Accounts>in the left panel is a selection for "Prevent a forgotten password" , just follow the prompts.