WIN 7 autoplay project unable to start on some PCs

[mikejbonner]

I hope someone can help with this...it has become a major problem for our CD project.

Under XP/Vista, code was include in the autoplay project file and ran on all PCs without any issue.

The Company then upgraded to win 7.0 across all Laptop/ PCs and removed admin rights as a policy - only IM can run as admin. The autoplay code now only works on some PCs and not others despite making changes to all of the three setting available in the Project Settings menu - Advanced - Requested User Privilege Level. Despite trying to discover the root cause we cannot progress on this.

Has anyone come across this problem and do you know of any fix/workaround?

I hope we have missed something simple, the whole project is under threat due to this issue....many thanks for any tips/hints or advice.

[mikejbonner]

Just to be clear, it is the CD produced by Autoplay that cannot be read by all the users on our company PC/laptops where they do not have admin rights....................thanks

[Ulrich]

(...) despite making changes to all of the three setting available in the Project Settings menu - Advanced - Requested User Privilege Level. Despite trying to discover the root cause we cannot progress on this.

It might help if you could post the project, or at least tell what setting you are actually using... Also, what is the name of the executable you are creating?

Ulrich

[mikejbonner]

Win 7 CD Issue

Hello Ulrike,

Mny thanks for your response to my request for help.

I have up loaded the entire autoplay project for you to check - it's 1.3MB and a has a great of work in it for multi language purposes and menu selections depending on machine types.

We have tried all combinations of setting for the User Privilages but get inconsisitent results across a spread of PCs/laptops. Streng thing is that our mother company uses the same software to produce CDs but they do not get the issue - however, my own theory is that they not use any kind of scripting in their project so perhaps this is why they do not get the same problem?

Our file name is a machine specific 16 digit alphanumneric code with ".exe".
Example: Y35DC06172D01C01.exe

I sincerely hope you will be able to stop something we are not setting correctly or to define what we need to do - Code signing perhaps?

Again many thanks for your response and support, Mike

[mikejbonner]

Hello Ulrich - really sorry, I just realised the mispelling of your name! I used to work with a very nice lady called Ulrike!!!! Regards........

[Ulrich]

Hello,

I looked at your project file, but I couldn't find anything clearly wrong.
- Your executable name looks safe;
- The application is manifested to be run as invoker;
- Your application does not attempt to execute any MSI packages or setups;
- The only thing I see you doing is managing a lot of PDF files.

You did not explain what doesn't work. Is there an error message? What does it say? Please copy and paste the exact error dialog/message. We know that opening PDF files on Windows 8 is problematic due to the security settings, which may not allow the opening of the documents without making changes to the Microsoft Reader or Adobe Reader applications. This error however wasn't seen on Windows 7 so far.

Ulrich

[longedge]

Just to be clear, it is the CD produced by Autoplay that cannot be read by all the users on our company PC/laptops where they do not have admin rights....................thanks

Does this mean that some CD's are unreadable *but* only on some machines with certain users logged on. If a user with full rights on that machine is logged on, can the CD then be read and executed correctly?

Are your computers on a domain/s which is administered/controlled centrally? Before I retired our central IT dept implemented stringent user and machine policies together with a security (the name escapes me at the moment) system which only allowed approved executables to run at all - it was complete nightmare for me providing IT support at a local level so I left .

[mikejbonner]

Error Message

Hi Ulrich,

Please find attached a screen print of the error messages we get on some users PCs as requested.

ErrorMessage.jpg is the one that comes up after the CD attempts to load up the autoplay software on the CD. Clicking the run, either normally or as administrator brings up the ExeError.jpg from the one sign software employed by the company, and of course, no users have admin rights except IM.

Hello Longedge, thanks for the comments and you are right when you state: "Are your computers on a domain/s which is administered/controlled centrally?". However, I am retired myself but I would really like to solve this issue as it is preventing the implementation of a 2 year project to provide a set of specific documents for a production system.

Any help or pointers would be greatly appreciated. Mike

[Ulrich]

If you are seeing the User Account Control dialog, then the project apparently wasn't published using the settings stored in the project you uploaded earlier. Please rebuild the project, making sure that "As invoker (default)" is indeed selected.

If you are a software publisher and distribute your programs to others regularly, it might also be a good idea getting a code signing certificate, and sign your code during the publishing task, so you eliminate the "Unknown Publisher" warning from the UAC dialog.

Finally, if rebuilding the project after these recommendations does not make the UAC warning go away, then this might indicate that there is a company policy in place, just as longedge mentioned, which prevents end users from running unapproved products inside the company environment. You would need to ask the company's network admin to white list the application name, so the end user might be able to call it from the removable media. Otherwise, it may be required to copy the file to a shared network location where these user have access rights.

Ulrich

[longedge]

My best guess would be something to do with group/user policies as managed by the domain controller/s. So if a user with admin rights logs onto the machine does the CD then work? If that is not the case, then it might be down to a software execution policy on machines within a particular group. My take is that the question is one for your network administrators to answer.

P.s. - Just to be clear I was thinking specifically about when you said, "CD produced by Autoplay that cannot be read by all the users on our company PC/laptops".

[mikejbonner]

Thank you both for your responses - these are very helpful as it proves we are doing nothing silly with the project itself and we need to our network admin guys involved - however, we know how long it takes to turn a large ship!!!

If a user has admin rights then all is well! It's all the users with win7 and group policies installed that have the problem. We may need to go down the code signing or white list route or both ....I will progress this with my company and let you know what transpires. Thanks again for your support, it is very much appreciated. Mike