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View Full Version : Problems after changung XP User A/c from Administrator to User



Alan_uk
2006-12-08, 17:12
Yesterday I set up a new XP Normal User account so that I no longer run my daily work as Administrator.

Today my scheduled run of Spybot failed at the point where it normally auto deletes any Spyware:
"Some problems couldn’t be fixed; the reason could be that the associated files are still in use (in memory). This could be fixed after a restart. May Spybot-S&D run on your next system startup?"
No items were deleted.

On manually re-running and clicking "fix selected problems" the same message appeared but this time deleted all bar one:

MS DirectDraw: Most recent application (Registry change, fixing failed)
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\DirectDraw\MostRecentApplication\Name!=

How do I fix this so that the schedule runs of Spybot run to completion (bearing in mind that on another run there may be a different item that cannot be deleted)?

I know I can make Spybot start as an administrator process but that seem to defeat the object of running securely. Would it help to re-install Spybot while logged on as a User rather than Administrator (or can only Administrators install)?

Thanks

P.S. sorry if this has been addressed before but it's very frustrating searching these forums if one can only do a search every 60 secords, especially if a search comes back with zero items found.

PepiMK
2006-12-08, 17:32
You can use "runas" to run Spybot under an admin account; for Vista we're actually reworking a lot to run the main app completely under a standard user account.

The MS DirectDraw thing is a registry key that imho DirectX itself has changed in a way that even admins could have right problems cleaning it. You can use "regedit" to change the permissions on this key (just allow everyone to change this... the name of the most recently run application isn't exactly something very secret or special that it needs to be protected in the way MS does ;) ).

Alan_uk
2006-12-08, 17:45
Hi PepiMK

That was a super fast response. Many thanks :)


The MS DirectDraw thing is a registry key that imho DirectX itself has changed in a way that even admins could have right problems cleaning it. You can use "regedit" to change the permissions on this key ....

Sounds like that DD was a one off. I'll change the key permission (just found of course that I have to log-on as Admin :rolleyes:

PepiMK
2006-12-08, 17:51
You don't necessarily have to re-logon under another account; create a shortcut to regedit.exe, open it's properties, and change the shortcut to run under different credentials, then you can start this application alone with admin rights ;)

http://img481.imageshack.us/img481/8287/regeditcredentialsne9.th.png (http://img481.imageshack.us/img481/8287/regeditcredentialsne9.png)