1 Topic by cwa

  • cwa
  • cwa
  • Peavey Technical Director
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  • From: Boulder, Colorado USA
  • Registered: 2007-08-13
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Topic: NW can only be run with administrator privileges

I've had a call from a customer who reports that when a user has Administrator privileges Kiosk works fine, but with a Limited account, Kiosk doesn't work.

When Kiosk is started, there's an error message - "Error launching  pandad: CreateSemaphore failed"

NWare (and NWare-kiosk) does not work unless you have Windows administrator privilege's.  The issue is that unless you have administrator privileges, Windows prevents the application  from talking to the Ethernet driver at the low level required for NION communications.

2 Reply by phils

  • phils
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Re: NW can only be run with administrator privileges

I recall an earlier comment that Kiosk would run with a Limited account once the move to Vista had happened.
Did this come about as hoped? Or is there any other way to solve this?

Also, when is Kiosk 1.4.1 likely to be posted?

Thanks

"The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place."
                                                                                        - George Bernard Shaw

3 Reply by Fergy

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Re: NW can only be run with administrator privileges

Phil, 1.4.1 is up on the Nion Resource site.

I know you know where that is, but for others;

http://mm.peavey.com/nion/index.cfm

Vista did not solve the Admin issues.

Make it intuitive, never leave them guessing.

4 Reply by phils

  • phils
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Re: NW can only be run with administrator privileges

Hi Scott,
I knew NWare was up, but Kiosk still isn't:

Kiosk Mode 1.4.1  Available Soon

Do we have any hope of resolving the Limited User/Admin issue?
I don't know what other network administrators are like, but some down here REALLY don't like having machines out there with Administrator rights!!

"The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place."
                                                                                        - George Bernard Shaw

5 Reply by jvalenzuela

  • jvalenzuela
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Re: NW can only be run with administrator privileges

I've always been curious about this too. I've done some network programming, albiet not on Windows systems, but what manner of 'low level' communications are required that are not available via user level interfaces? Aren't all Nware network communications handled over IP? If I am to believe the error message, is the term 'semaphore' used to describe the common SysV interprocess communication mechanism? Is this part of the IPC between Nware/kiosk and pandad?

I agree with phils' network administrators, running programs with administrator(root) privs is usually Evil(TM).

6 Reply by cwa

  • cwa
  • cwa
  • Peavey Technical Director
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  • From: Boulder, Colorado USA
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Re: NW can only be run with administrator privileges

I believe that under Vista, administrator privilege is no longer required for NWare or Kiosk.  Give it a try and let us know if you have any problems.

7 Reply by jvalenzuela

  • jvalenzuela
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Re: NW can only be run with administrator privileges

I am currently running XP Pro, and just downloaded 1.6. It seems that both Kiosk and Nware still require administrator level accounts to run. According to the resulting error messages, it has nothing to do with networking, but attempting write access to the program's installation directory, specifically cobra.config.xml and plugins/nware/xml/preferences.xml. If these files do indeed need to be mutable by users, they do not belong in the program directory.

8 Reply by aspender

  • aspender
  • aspender
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  • From: Peavey Oxford
  • Registered: 2007-12-03
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Re: NW can only be run with administrator privileges

We include a section in the release notes about using a workaround to run NWare and Kiosk under XP for non-admin users:

57 - Additional steps needed for non-admin users running NWare under Windows XP

Currently, non-administrator users cannot run NWare or Kiosk under Windows XP without additional steps being completed after the installation.

The administrator must change the permissions of the \program files\mediamatrix\nware <version>\plugins\nware\xml folder to allow write access for the non-administrator users. Once this has been done, NWare and Kiosk will operate normally.

For more information, see "Allowing non-admin Windows XP users to run NWare and Kiosk" in the PDF or webhelp NWare User Guide.

aspender's Website

9 Reply by Fergy

  • Fergy
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Re: NW can only be run with administrator privileges

Here is the link to the page in the Knowledge Center documenting Andy's comments above;

http://peaveyoxford.com/kc/9100.htm

Learn it, Love it, Live it.

Fergy

Make it intuitive, never leave them guessing.

10 Reply by jvalenzuela

  • jvalenzuela
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Re: NW can only be run with administrator privileges

Ok, thanks for the link, that definitely looks like it will allow a normal user to run NWare. With an eye towards a real fix, is it possible in a future version to relocate user data such as this to a more appropriate place, such as the Documents and Settings directory?

11 Reply by jvalenzuela

  • jvalenzuela
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Re: NW can only be run with administrator privileges

After successfully starting NWare with a limited user, it seems that copy/paste operations do not work. I tried both Ctl+drag and the usual Ctl-c, Ctl-v, neither do anything.