Allowing End Users to install fonts.

[Sibrows]

I'm looking for a way to allow the staff a way to install fonts on to their PCs without giving them admin access.

 

I can find various articles claiming to show you how to do it but thus far no luck.

 

I'm trying to get it working on Windows 7 SP1.

 

Has anyone managed to do this?

[enjay]

What's involved in installing a font? Do they just need write access to C:\Windows\Fonts or is there more to it?

[ZeroHour]

Both writing into the directory and registry changes need to happen when installing a font. Its not as simple as dropping a file in sadly.

[Sibrows]

Both writing into the directory and registry changes need to happen when installing a font. Its not as simple as dropping a file in sadly.

 

Thats almost definitely whats catching me out. It was worth a try.

 

Thanks for all your responses.

[DJ-1701]

I would point out as well that sometimes users get fonts that they are not legitimately entitled to install without a license for the school.

[JasonNVSD]

I'm looking for a way to allow the staff a way to install fonts on to their PCs without giving them admin access.

If you want to script it in batch, you need a copy of subinacl.exe from Microsoft. You need to change permissions on the folder, the cache file, and the registry.

 

My script is a little different than the ones you see online; I give users only modify rights instead of full control, I return ownership back to who's supposed to have it, and I return the read-only and system attributes.

attrib -r -s "%SYSTEMROOT%\Fonts"
takeown /f "%SYSTEMROOT%\Fonts"
icacls "%SYSTEMROOT%\Fonts" /grant "Users":M
icacls "%SYSTEMROOT%\System32\FNTCACHE.dat" /grant "Users":M
subinacl /noverbose /regkey "HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Fonts" /grant="Users"
subinacl /noverbose /file "%SYSTEMROOT%\Fonts" /owner="NT SERVICE\TrustedInstaller"
attrib +r +s "%SYSTEMROOT%\Fonts"

Edited June 6, 2016 by JasonNVSD

[Gibson335]

In addition to copyright as mentioned above, I'd also be wary of fonts which are not well constructed - I recall one a few years back which we put into a specific room and it completely screwed Word for some reason.