[sims] SIMS & UAC

[Rawns]

I'm interested in your "experiences" with installing SIMS .net on a Windows 7 device with UAC. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I thought that as SIMS .net is supported on Windows 7, it should install and work normally with or without UAC enabled.

 

We are seeing schools upgrade their Workstations to Windows 7 and almost all of them have all manor of problems if UAC is enabled. One school has had 8 new devices and none of them were working correctly after SIMS was installed with UAC enabled.

 

Once UAC had been disabled, they all worked normally. How do you all manage SIMS installs on Win 7? Advise to disable it, enable it after the installation of SIMS, or can you actually install SIMS .net with UAC enabled?

[rh91uk]

We disable UAC here. It has causes all manner of problems with certain scripts running etc. I deploy SIMS out to the workstation via script ... cant wait for SOLUS 3!

[creese]

Deleted

[sted]

ive got a small script to install sims while leaving uac on (right click run as administrator for the script and the same the 1st time you load sims to select sims.ini)

 

net use f: \\server\sims /user:domain\user password /persistent:yes
"F:\SIMS\Setups\simsinst.exe"

i use persistent that way if i ever need to run as admin again there is a drive f and i dont need a n other script

[Theblacksheep]

We keep UAC but it wont update on its own with it on, we push out the SIMS updates via SCCM.

 

Capita need to program it correctly to not invoke UAC.

[vikpaw]

Had no problems so long as it's run as the administrator account right through to first run and selecting location of connect.ini

 

Otherwise in another thread somebody suggested Sted's solution as there is an issue with the way profiles work, you get two, normal and elevated, and the Sims share needs to be mapped under elevated privileges. [i think]

[CAM]

If you get an error for "Incom_Db", Incomaptible Database or variant thereof, then SIMS has failed to update properly. It won't even tell users an update was due. To fix it, right click the SIMS shortcut and select Run as Administrator to apply the update.

 

That is the only major problem I have run into so far since 64-bit support was added. But frankly why is SIMS still running on the old login as Administrator concept to update properly? Limited user priviledges, even for home systems, have been good practice for a while but were never used as software developers screwed up so many settings.

 

As Microsoft themselves said when UAC first appeared, it was deliberately intrusive to persuade developers to stop being lazy and create software properly.

Edited March 16, 2011 by CAM

[Arthur]

Capita need to program it correctly to not invoke UAC.

Is that ever going to happen?

[matt40k]

Capita need to program it correctly to not invoke UAC.

 

I've never turned UAC off and they have done UAC correctly, UAC will prompt when an application writes to protected directories - such as program files, which is what SIMS does during an upgrade. That's what UAC is! The "solution" is SOLUS3, the user won't deploy the upgrade, SOLUS3 will, still if your using SCCM will be pretty pointless as it's repeating SCCM only is a more focus way - ie it'll only Capita products.

 

I'm not sure about S: Drive issue, I always copy the connect.ini from the S: drive to the local application directory (program files\sims\sims .net) - the connect.ini is the only thing I can think of that might cause a UAC issue.

[Arthur]

the connect.ini is the only thing I can think of that might cause a UAC issue.

IniFileMapping could be used as a workaround, couldn't it?

 

The ideal solution would be for Capita to stop using INI files (especially ones located in protected folders).

[matt40k]

Very interesting. INI files are easy, I've talked a number of shall we say, basic computer users in changing INI files, registry changes would be difficult, having said that you could create something to edit it. How would you do it? Put it in the programdata folder? Still that's really Vista\W7. Or the local user settings, still pain having to configure multiple users.

 

FYI, you can move the sims.ini to the local application folder, again not perfect, but could be an option.

[Theblacksheep]

I've never turned UAC off and they have done UAC correctly, UAC will prompt when an application writes to protected directories - such as program files, which is what SIMS does during an upgrade. That's what UAC is! The "solution" is SOLUS3, the user won't deploy the upgrade, SOLUS3 will, still if your using SCCM will be pretty pointless as it's repeating SCCM only is a more focus way - ie it'll only Capita products.

 

I'm not sure about S: Drive issue, I always copy the connect.ini from the S: drive to the local application directory (program files\sims\sims .net) - the connect.ini is the only thing I can think of that might cause a UAC issue.

 

I agree Solus3 is the official solution.

 

If SIMS was UAC compliant its wouldn't need to read/write sims.ini in the %windows% directory. Along with protecting program files, UAC protects against writing to directories that programs do not need to use, but do use, simply because they have in the past.

[matt40k]

Getting rid of ini files is about 2 years off at least. 1 year of dual support of INI and the new method, and another to wind up support. Even then the amount of problems would be enormous. You think about how many 3 party products\scripts\tools use the INI files.

 

Still, I like many, would welcome the change.