What pisses me off about today's software companies
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Join Date: 2002-11-04 Member: 6944Members
Join Date: 2002-11-04 Member: 6944Members
<div class="IPBDescription">What is a software user according to them</div>Ok, over the years that I have had computers, I have always created different logons on them for my wife and a few friends/relatives when they come over. But during those years, I have often encounter a problem caused by some software companies because they dictates what a user should be and how he/she should use their software.
Exemple A :
I had a someone who had baught Empire Earth 1 and I installed it on my PC. He had a simple user logon on my PC. But, for his game, in order to play it, he had to have administrative rights (meaning full rights in anything related to this game including folders and registries). Now I didn't want to make him an administrator just so he could play it. I NEVER give anybody else other then ME rights to be administrator. After all, it is MY pc and I AM the administrator of it. So anyway, I had to change the security rights on that folder and the registries I found for that game to allow him administrative rights to those ithems ONLY. I found out about the registries after sending an email to the owner of that game (think it is Sierra but that guy is gone and so is his game).
Exemple B:
My wife doesn't have a good vision and even with recent glasses, she has a hard time reading icons at 1024*768. Added to this, I had baught a Shangai tiles type of game for her. She loves this game and is the only game she plays on it. But, that game doesn't maximize to the full desktop and therefore, it is bearly fits in to a 640*480 desktop. So I had to find a way to automaticaly change the resolution everytimes she logs on. I cannot explain to her how to change the resolution on her own. It is beond her and she simply refuses having to do this everytimes she wants to play. So I did a bit of search and found a small program that simply creates an icon in the Startup folder to change it to whatever I want. Unfortunetly, it seams that since I changed monitor (with way more resolutions), that tool doesn't work properly. So I opened up a ticket to ATI to find out how to do it with the Catalyst Center of my ATI. They told me "create a profile, save it and execute it everytimes". So I did. But I found out that to even change the resolution of the desktop via an ATI shortcut, you AGAIN, need to have administrative rights. I checked to have security changed for these shortcuts but it doesn't seam to be possible.
Conclusion :
Why do software companies almost always build theire software thinking that only administors will use them ? Even for games <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/confused-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="???" border="0" alt="confused-fix.gif" />
I do not want to start giving administrator rights to all my users. Its like giving a machine gun to a kid. He can run loose and destroy everything, even by mistake !!!
Exemple A :
I had a someone who had baught Empire Earth 1 and I installed it on my PC. He had a simple user logon on my PC. But, for his game, in order to play it, he had to have administrative rights (meaning full rights in anything related to this game including folders and registries). Now I didn't want to make him an administrator just so he could play it. I NEVER give anybody else other then ME rights to be administrator. After all, it is MY pc and I AM the administrator of it. So anyway, I had to change the security rights on that folder and the registries I found for that game to allow him administrative rights to those ithems ONLY. I found out about the registries after sending an email to the owner of that game (think it is Sierra but that guy is gone and so is his game).
Exemple B:
My wife doesn't have a good vision and even with recent glasses, she has a hard time reading icons at 1024*768. Added to this, I had baught a Shangai tiles type of game for her. She loves this game and is the only game she plays on it. But, that game doesn't maximize to the full desktop and therefore, it is bearly fits in to a 640*480 desktop. So I had to find a way to automaticaly change the resolution everytimes she logs on. I cannot explain to her how to change the resolution on her own. It is beond her and she simply refuses having to do this everytimes she wants to play. So I did a bit of search and found a small program that simply creates an icon in the Startup folder to change it to whatever I want. Unfortunetly, it seams that since I changed monitor (with way more resolutions), that tool doesn't work properly. So I opened up a ticket to ATI to find out how to do it with the Catalyst Center of my ATI. They told me "create a profile, save it and execute it everytimes". So I did. But I found out that to even change the resolution of the desktop via an ATI shortcut, you AGAIN, need to have administrative rights. I checked to have security changed for these shortcuts but it doesn't seam to be possible.
Conclusion :
Why do software companies almost always build theire software thinking that only administors will use them ? Even for games <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/confused-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid="???" border="0" alt="confused-fix.gif" />
I do not want to start giving administrator rights to all my users. Its like giving a machine gun to a kid. He can run loose and destroy everything, even by mistake !!!
Comments
As most developers (UWE included) use standard installers, these installers then made the same fatal assumption. It's something that will change over time, but expect at least heartache while it's sorted. I certainly wouldn't cave in & give Users Administrator rights, but the vast majority of PC users these days simply don't care, so publishers won't see a hit in their sales for sloppy coding (Hell, look at EA's entire business model) and thus, continue to push it out no matter what state it's in.
Bring on SLA's in gaming, I say. <img src="style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/smile-fix.gif" style="vertical-align:middle" emoid=":)" border="0" alt="smile-fix.gif" />
- Shockwave
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I don't think that's really the case for most games. Empire Earth 1 is quite old (in fact Charlie worked on this prior to starting Natural Selection) and now-a-days all major publishers have guidelines that dictate these types of things. On Titan Quest, which was published by THQ, we had a 4-5 page checklist of things like this that they require from all of their games before they release them. Installing with administrator privileges is pretty standard I believe because most games will install DirectX -- another one of those things required by the checklist -- but any decent game will allow you to run as a normal user.
With Windows Vista Microsoft has initiated the "Games For Windows" movement which requires that games meet certain criteria like this to become "Games For Windows" certified (which means you get a little sticker on the box).
Max
Remember, it was designed to be as idiot-proof as possible, as 95% of computer owners are computer illiterate and have admin rights to their own computers.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
In response to this, I will quote something I read somewhere but cannot remember where :
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I have been in the computer industry for 30 years and let me tell you that I have seen computer-dummy people finding a way to totally mess up your PC when in fact it was supposed to be protected.
Think the admin rights have to do with changing system settings when you launch the game (resolution and such) thus the game needs admin rights to run.
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Exactly, it's more of a Windows issue of access to certain controls. If Microsoft wanted to they could make optimize an OS for gaming, but that's not the market they care about. Microsoft generally feels that you should buy an XBox 360 if you want to play a game -- or rather the new Special Edition 360 currently speaking.
Exactly, it's more of a Windows issue of access to certain controls. If Microsoft wanted to they could make optimize an OS for gaming, but that's not the market they care about. Microsoft generally feels that you should buy an XBox 360 if you want to play a game -- or rather the new Special Edition 360 currently speaking.
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Hence the Games for Windows initiative and DirectX10. I mean... wait...
Wait, you guys are complaining that windows protects itself from random .exe installer files from reading and writing anything they want? Seriously, you guys are whining that non-administrator accounts can't do administrator actions?
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You'll find that when it comes time to criticize<b> [EA/Microsoft/George Lucas/etc] </b>people are very willing to make gigantic faulty leaps in logic in order to get that angry rant out the door and on to the Internet before they come to their senses.
Wait, you guys are complaining that windows protects itself from random .exe installer files from reading and writing anything they want? Seriously, you guys are whining that non-administrator accounts can't do administrator actions?
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Maybe these other guys but I'm not. I'm complaining that for simply things that normal users should be able to do in order to use software is simply not possible because software companies built those software for administrator groups related users only.
Anyway, got a reply back from ATI about their Catalyst Center capable of creating personnal profiles for different users to use different resolutions, well, simply cannot be used by non administor group related users. They too, have built their sofware to be used by administrators only. I know its easy to change it ourselves by going to the display property, but some people are just to illeterate or too stoburn to do it.
So to fix my automatic-different-resolution-change-at-logon-per-users problem, I now have to look for a 3rd party software to do this ***feel like adding one word but I won't*** . Anyone know of a small and bug free simple to use 3rd party software to do this ?
<a href="http://www.rt-sw.de/en/freeware/freeware.html" target="_blank">http://www.rt-sw.de/en/freeware/freeware.html</a>
<!--quoteo--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE</div><div class='quotemain'><!--quotec-->Sudo for Windows
Almost everyone knows the program Sudo with the Linux operating system. This name stands for super user do. Unfortunately a similar program is missing with the Windows operating system. With Sudo you can start a program or open a document with administrator rights under your account which has only reduced rights. This is for example in the case of stubborn games, self-willed set-up-programs useful. But also as an alternative for the program runas it can perform good services.
Source code is also included.<!--QuoteEnd--></div><!--QuoteEEnd-->
Does involve giving away an admin password I'm afraid, or passing it along in the shortcut.
Wait, you guys are complaining that windows protects itself from random .exe installer files from reading and writing anything they want? Seriously, you guys are whining that non-administrator accounts can't do administrator actions?
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No, I'm complaining about a combination of the two.
MS - For taking so damn long to implement a UNIX style user permissions system. And then having some things require administrator privledges that clearly shouldn't need them on a per-user basis (Desktop resolution, for example)
The developers in question - For being slack enough to use installers on this basis that have no capability to fail & request escalation.
Permission Denied - Are you root?