Autocad not running in Restricted user login in windows 7

Hi

Iam using windows 7 and windows xp in our domain pc's.We have AUTOCAD 2006 & 2009 in our pc's .It is quiet working good in all the windows xp pc's with restricted user logged in those pc's

But in newly bought pc's with windows 7 retail version professional,I found that AUTOCAD is working only in users with administrator rights logged in those windows 7 pc's.

I cannot give admin rights for those users.Only they have to be in restricted group

Anybody can help me regarding this?Please

Thanks

Techshan(Swaminathan)

Muscat

30-06-2010

The AutoCAD stuff has to be installed somewhere this restricted group can get to it. If it is, then find your Acad.exe for those versions, right click the file and check Properties, Security, Permissions, Edit, and/or Advanced to change their user permissions. Whoever does this must log on as Administrator.

It is possible the permissions for the whole AutoCAD folder(s) and any special Project or AutoCAD drawing folders will have to be edited as well.

Hi Dana

I tried all the solutions ;but only working when the user with admin rights logon to all windows 7 pc's.

But I cannot give the admin rights to the users

Please find a solution for this problem

Techshan

Hi Dana

 

I tried all the solutions ;but only working when the user with admin rights logon to all windows 7 pc's.

 

 

But I cannot give the admin rights to the users

 

Please find a solution for this problem

 

 

Techshan

Sounds like a Government Contract to me.

Put the files on a secured server.

Give the users limited access.:wink:

I am not a network administrator, I probably cannot come up with the technical answer. Let's see if someone else has any ideas.

Same Concern here!

PLease Help solve this Problem!

Thanks!

The "solution" is an extremely cumbersome exercise. ACad literally has a plethora of folders where it reads data and stores settings - and I mean in the order of 30+ as minimum from a default installation. These are all over the show as well, not just limted to the users folders. There's even some in the All Users folder, some under the user's name (not just under the Application Data either), some under Program Files, some under Windows folder, etc. etc. etc. And most (if not all) require WRITE access to those folders, else ACad will fail to even start.

The problem comes in due to M$ finally waking up and making a more security centric OS ... one where you can only change PC-wide settings if your username has an Administrative right on that PC. In XP any user could modify most files/folders even if they were just a normal user / power user. So acad tended to work "easier" on XP after a normal install.

There's 2 solutions, the 1st of which is hardly ever used since it's so difficult to make work (and in any case does much the same as the 2nd):

1. Find out every single folder ACad even considers looking at and give the user write access to them all. You may need to run something like Process Explorer to see what the acad.exe (and all of its DLL's) do and which files/folders it has open. This is a painful and long-winded piece of work, no administrator has the time for. And once you've finally given write access to those folder you find that the user has nearly as many rights as an administrator anyway.
   
2. Give the users admin rights to the PC ONLY! Have all your sensitive data on a server and set that share/folder to have restricted access. This is a lot simpler to setup and the difference in security between these are not excessive - once you've givn rights on the folders it's much the same thing in effect.
   

Unfortunately there's no getting round it. The user need not be an admin system-wide - only for the PC on which they're working (i.e. only the local HDD - C: drive). Any mapped drives or network URL's may still be restricted to that user.

The biggest worry is that the PC becomes very prone to stuff like viruses. Since the user has admin rights / or write access to nearly all folders anyway, a viral infection can grow very easily on that PC - perhaps even spreading into the network. So due to this you need extremely good AV and Firewalling on each PC or disallow any form of external access. And when I say firewalling - that's not the built-in M$ CR@P, I mean something like Komodo Firewall or better (even if you have a corporate firewall and/or gateway).

So even if you spend the weeks on figuring out which folders to give access to, you'll find that you've basically turned a restricted user into an admin in any case ... just doing it the long way round.

Until ADesk consolidates their haphazard arrangement of support folders and settings locations this will always be a problem. Their arrangement was designed in the days when Windows had nearly no security (i.e. Win95/98). Even on the old WinNT4 you tended to "Just give admin rights" so it would at least run. M$ has steadily increased the user access restrictions to now nearly match those of *nix, ADesk stayed behind and didn't adjust their programs workings to suit (yet ... hopefully).

This is a pain because all the "nice things" M$ are saying about their OS being so "secure" is moot! Because if those security aspects are left on, the PC is useless with most software. I actually think M$ should fine software companies who don't write their programs to comply with the security system. Otherwise they should just drop the case for security in its totality, because it will never get used.

The following worked for me on a Win7 PC with AutoCad 2006 update from AutoCad 2002 full version:

Add the user to the local Administrators group.

Log back in to the PC as the user (now with admin rights).

Launch AutoCad 2006 and register the product under the user profile.

Log out and back into the PC as the Administrator.

Remove the user from the local Administrators group.

Log back in as the user (now without admin rights).

AutoCad 2006 should work now.

Thanks,

Kyle

ktran: You realize the last response to this thread was more than three years ago?