Allowing USB memory sticks for non admins... Don't hit me!

[MrLudwig]

I realise this is going against the grain (so to speak) of most posts in these forums, but we have one room of PC's in the music department that refuse to allow any non-administrator level users to mount USB sticks.

The PC's detect the USB sticks fine, but pop up a message saying you need administrative privileges to install them. All our other PC's accept them without a problem and they are all setup in the same way.

There are no separate group policies for these PC's, and the same users can use USB sticks in other PC's on our network without this problem.

In a last attempt to solve this I have just finished reinstalling XP-SP2 onto one of the PC's from scratch, joined it to the domain, logged on as a student and tried it again and the same thing happens. So now I'm stumped.


Any ideas?

Thanks

[tomscaper]

If you log on as an administrator and install the memory stick, does it then pick the stick up if you log on as non admin. If it does i would then try a seperate memory stick to see if that pics up as well.

Mabye check and do a gpupdate incase something is missing.

Also how many pc in music room, incase you have to install them first time.l

[enjay]

This problem happens when you install something which overwrites the system32\catroot folder so it would be worth identifying any software which is only installed on those PCs and then seeing if the package contains files in the catroot folder. If so, uninstall the package, remove the files from the MSI and then reallocate it.

Are you an RM school? If so, there's a package which you can apply which will hopefully resolve this.

[MrLudwig]

If you log on as an administrator and install the memory stick, does it then pick the stick up if you log on as non admin. If it does i would then try a seperate memory stick to see if that pics up as well.

Yes, it works fine if the stick has already been installed.

Just tried it with a different stick (exactly the same make/model/size) in the same USB port and it again says "You must be a member of the Administrators group on this computer to install this hardware".

I will try GPUpdate.

It's only 10 PC's, but it's starting to make my head hurt. :cry:

[SSFC]

We had this problem in the summer, as NickJones says, the problem is associated with a corruption in the folder ‘C:\Windows\system32\catroot2’.

To correct this all we did was to delete this folder and allow the pc to create another one on reboot. NOTE: The folder cannot be deleted until you stop the process ‘cryptsvc’

[MrLudwig]

Thanks for the info, the music PC's do have some software installed that is not used anywhere else, so this may well be the culprit.

Will try deleting the folder and see what happens.

Thanks again.

[MrLudwig]

OK, a valiant try, but it is still doing it.

Thanks anyway.


/Looks for wall to bang head against!

[tomscaper]

Try rebuilding one again, without any software deployed on it. And see if non admins can use memory sticks. If that works, add the software one by one and try pinpoint it to some software.

[MrLudwig]

Try rebuilding one again, without any software deployed on it. And see if non admins can use memory sticks. If that works, add the software one by one and try pinpoint it to some software.

I had considered that, but I was hoping there might be an easier way. I really didn't want to go through installing everything again from scratch.

Thanks all.

[bossman]

What type of motherboard is in these workstations as i have found different motherboards produce different results with different models of USB pen drives.

have you tried other USB pen drives. It usually comes down to unsigned drivers so if you have suppressed error messaging via gpo you will not get the windows message box pop up which tells you a device is trying to install unsigned drivers to which you have the option of continuing anyway if logged on as a user with admin rights.

[Michael]

I agree with what's been mentioned already, but try the command gpupdate /force and also try adding 'domain users' as local administrators using the MMC.

Reboot, then see if users can use memory sticks.

[buzzard]

and also try adding 'domain users' as local administrators using the MMC.

Reboot, then see if users can use memory sticks.

Remember this is a security risk!! but will help diagnose the issue!!

[dpitham]

I don't suppose you have Pro Tools LE installed on those machines do you?

Taken from the Digidesign (pro tools manufacturer) website : http://www.digidesign.com/index.cfm?...1&itemid=28203

Installing Pro Tools LE 7x on any Windows XP Service Pack 2 machine will request Administrator password to mount a USB flash drive (pen drive) when logged in under a user account (unless it has already been mounted under the Administrator account). Prior to the installation of Pro Tools no password is required, after uninstalling Pro Tools the password is still required to mount the USB flash drive.
This is a known issue in Pro Tools LE & M-Powered 7.0, 7.3 & 7.4. (Windows XP).

We're having the same problem on 40 of our machines which have Pro Tools installed, and I've been pulling my hair out for days trying to solve it.

Things I've tried include :

Putting Domain Users into Power Users group
Settings the correct permissions/rights through group policy, and running gpudate
Giving Domain Users permissions to the USBSTOR and USB registry keys
Giving Domain Users permissions to the USBSTOR driver files

Unfortunately giving our students admin access is a complete no-no.

Any ideas?

[Barry]

I don't suppose you have Pro Tools LE installed on those machines do you?

Taken from the Digidesign (pro tools manufacturer) website : http://www.digidesign.com/index.cfm?...1&itemid=28203

Installing Pro Tools LE 7x on any Windows XP Service Pack 2 machine will request Administrator password to mount a USB flash drive (pen drive) when logged in under a user account (unless it has already been mounted under the Administrator account). Prior to the installation of Pro Tools no password is required, after uninstalling Pro Tools the password is still required to mount the USB flash drive.
This is a known issue in Pro Tools LE & M-Powered 7.0, 7.3 & 7.4. (Windows XP).

We're having the same problem on 40 of our machines which have Pro Tools installed, and I've been pulling my hair out for days trying to solve it.

Things I've tried include :

Putting Domain Users into Power Users group
Settings the correct permissions/rights through group policy, and running gpudate
Giving Domain Users permissions to the USBSTOR and USB registry keys
Giving Domain Users permissions to the USBSTOR driver files

Unfortunately giving our students admin access is a complete no-no.

Any ideas?

We have the same problems, caused by installing the protools drivers for the mbox2.

[dpitham]

I have raised the issue with Digidesign - basically telling them to get their act sorted, and I'm currently waiting for a reply.