One for the IT people - Windows 7 UAC

[Digsy]

I recently bought (yes!) and installed Corel WinDVD. This software gets a LOT of bad reviews for instability, updates that permanently break it, poor aftersales support and so on, so I Was very wary about getting it. However the PRE-sales support was very good and I even managed to secure a discount once the free trial version expired.

 

HOWEVER: The fully paid verison only wants to run under an admin account which I find very strange as it is only a glorified media player. I have a support ticket open with Corel about this but the guy handling it simply does not understand my problem. Hopefully someon on here will.

 

Here is what happens: I have two user accounts on my PC. One with standard permissions and once with admin permisisons. The admin account requires a password.

 

1) Starting from within the standard account.

2) Launch the installer.

3) Windows UAC asks for the admin password to allow installation of the software (totally normal behaviour).

4) Winstaller runs and closes.

5) Click icon to launch WinDVD. Nothing happens, but if you watch what is going on with Task Manager, the WinDVD.exe process runs for about 1 second before closing.

6) Run with admin rights (right click, run as administrator): The UAC admin passwrd box pops up and then WinDVD launches properly.

7) Log out and log back in as admin

8) WinDVD launches normally.

 

I though that maybe I should install WinDVD from the admin account and make it available to all users, but it behaves exactly the same.

 

The trial verison does require the admin password to install it, but not to launch it. The plonker I am speaking to at Corel support says that the programme needs admin rights otherwise "some features might not work". This is clearly cobblers bacause (a) the trial version is fully featured, just time limited and (b) it won't run at all under a standard account, so in fact "no features" are working. Also its ridiculous for a media player aimed at consumers to require unrestricted access to my PC.

 

I am not going to disable UAC. Also, Windows 7 does not not allow you to specify permanent permissions for individual user / software cobminations. Its either UAC on or Off.

Setting the WinDVD.exe file to "always run as administrator" still requires me to type in the admin password, so that's clunky and still a security risk, so not a solution.

 

I even downloaded the Windows Compatability Toolkit from Microsoft and attempted to create a permanent patch following the instructions for a different bit of software that suffers a similar issue, but it didn't work.

 

Any thoughts? I have 30 days free after sales support remaining and the option to request a refund if I get no joy but I'd really like to get this to work.

[Angarak]

Not sure if this would help:

 

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/stop-annoying-uac-prompts-how-to-create-a-user-account-control-whitelist-windows/

 

 

[Digsy]

Not sure if this would help:

 

http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/stop-annoying-uac-prompts-how-to-create-a-user-account-control-whitelist-windows/

 

/QUOTE]

 

I did see that. It falls over for me for the reason stated at the very end of that article:

 

"One big con is that all of these still require a shortcut (except TweakUAC, but it’s not a true whitelist method). Ideally, there would be a solution to create a whitelist for the original executable files, instead of these annoying workarounds."

 

WinDVD intergrates with WMC. Any workaround which requires a seperate shortcut won't work. I need to understand why the actual .exe file thinks it needs admin rights and fix that, or find a way to add the .exe to a whitelist (which is what Windows Compatability Toolkit is supposed to do).

[Ian C]

Turn off UAC you doofus

[JordanC]

Crappy software will have these issues. Not sure why you don't want to disable UAC, one of the first things I do if installing Windows onto a personal machine as its the most annoying crap on the planet and the only purpose it serves for me is basically the machine asking me if I'm sure that I want to do what I'm trying to do. It won't stop a virus or anything like that, most modern ones will bypass the UAC authentication stuff altogether.

 

Although I am the only user of the PC so maybe that has some leverage behind your decision.

 

What particular functionality of the software will you use the most? I mean even your free media players can do most of this stuff these days, this software is the type of junk that would come with a 1999 Hewlett Packard machine as standard which most people deleted straight away.

 

I use VLC media player personally and it's free.

[Ian C]

I endorse the above ^^

[Parm_93]

Disable it as above, it's annoying as and does nothing!

[Digsy]

Crappy software will have these issues. Not sure why you don't want to disable UAC, one of the first things I do if installing Windows onto a personal machine as its the most annoying crap on the planet and the only purpose it serves for me is basically the machine asking me if I'm sure that I want to do what I'm trying to do. It won't stop a virus or anything like that, most modern ones will bypass the UAC authentication stuff altogether..

 

Although I am the only user of the PC so maybe that has some leverage behind your decision..

 

I too am the only user of the PC, but ths kind of consumer-oriented software is precisely what should not require admin rights. i.e. its aimed at people who just want to watch a video. Not sure about the crappy software comment. I've installed plenty of crappy software on my PC but nothing that isn't concened with security or changing the PC configuration in some way, has ever demanded admin rights just to launch. As I mentioned above, the free trial version runs fine under a standard user account.

 

What particular functionality of the software will you use the most? I mean even your free media players can do most of this stuff these days, this software is the type of junk that would come with a 1999 Hewlett Packard machine as standard which most people deleted straight away.

 

I want to play native Blu-ray discs, legitimately, without ripping to MKV first and without all the faff that goes along with using seperate freeware or payware decoders (like Slysoft AnyDVD). I want a solution which integrates with my existing HTPC and is as close to using a stand alone player as possible, with a proper 10' GUI. There are currently only two software players which do this: WinDVD Pro and PowerDVD. I tried both as time limited demos and plumped for WinDVD Pro. Total Media Theatre used to be the Blu player of choice for HTPCs but they stopped selling it a while back.

[Digsy]

OK, I seem to have fixed this myself.

 

Went through the registry and removed as many references to WinDVD as I could, then re-installed. The installer asks for two file locations, one for the main programme which goes in C:\Program files (x86)\Corel\WinDVD and the other which normally defaults to C:\Program data\sMedio... which is a hidden location. I changed the latter to go in my user home area.

 

Either there was a borked registry setting, or one of the default file locations was protected somehow. Anyway - it works.

[Pete]

DVD's?

How very 20th century.

[Digsy]

DVD's?

How very 20th century.

 

I want to play native Blu-ray discs...

 

WinDVD Pro plays Blu Rays, which is why I need it.

[Ian C]

Well I'm glad you sorted it I wasn't criticising your use-case requirements or software choice, I've learned these days to respect each to their own and all that, but I just can't believe you leave UAC on It's suuuuch a pain in the ass and fixes nothing - turning it off it's usually the third thing I do on a fresh install, and that's because the second thing I do makes it stick it's oar in and annoy me!

 

It didn't surprise me that vendor bloatware demanded admin access to stuff as things tend to be written by "world class" coders now on cheaper shores. Whether or not it theoretically should or shouldn't need admin rights to run is irrelevant if faced with the reality that it's written badly and cheaply enough that it does In your case, it was just laziness in writing crap to a 'protected' area, so easily bypassed - hurrah!

[Digsy]

To be fair I did some reading up on UAC and as you say it doesn't do what I thought it did, so if I hadn't fixed the root cause I would have turned it off. Ian, some day I shall show you the Corel tech "support" e-mail thread. Today's installment told me that in fact ALL Windows programmes have to be run with admin rights, because of "Windows policy". I wrote back explaining how I fixed the problem myself, and am now awaiting them to close the ticket and send me the auto-generated customer feedback form. Corel actually charge $20 per query for support tickets raised after the initial 30 day period! Maybe they put better people on the paid-for tickets, eh?

 

WinDVD Pro isn't really bloatware - it just does one job which is to play a relatively narrow list of media files. The only other real competitor is PowerDVD which by comparison tries to take over your entire media experience, but I found it to be slow and really unstable. Its a case of being stuck betwen a rock and another much bigger rock. Sadly HTPCs have been rendered largely obsolete by smart TVs and on demand services like Netflix, and relatively cheap, user friendly hardware.

 

Judging by the user reviews on Amazon, the next trial will be when it needs updating to keep the DRM stuff up to date - that frequently seems to break it.