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No write access for stars.ini

Thu, 04 November 2004 06:36

wizard

Officer Cadet 3rd Year

Messages: 279
Registered: January 2004
Location: Aachen, Germany

Hi all,
I am using a computer where I don't have write access to c:\windows directory. Stars! isn't able to save the stars.ini file there. Thus, I can't play stars! here.
Can anyone think of a workaround to this problem?

Thanks in advance,

Andreas / wizard

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Re: No write access for stars.ini

Thu, 04 November 2004 08:34

platon79

Chief Warrant Officer 3

Messages: 185
Registered: February 2004
Location: Norway

Hi there. I just got the same problem as you yesterday, as I had to relocate from my old computer. Now I'm using some shared computers without admin rights. I guess I can play stars, but it is a bit annoying to have to type my serial each time I start stars. And set the zoom level and turn on planet names and unit counter and so on...
I would be very interested if someone found a workaround.. Smile

-platon79

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Re: No write access for stars.ini

Thu, 04 November 2004 08:55

Staz

Lieutenant

Messages: 514
Registered: November 2003
Location: UK

Do you have access to the registry ? If you do you could try adding a mapping as described here...

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/e n-us/sysinfo/base/writeprivateprofilestring.asp

However, if the system is locked down so you can't access the Windows directory, you probably can't edit the registry either.

rgcs has a discussion about it titled "technical question about the location of Stars.ini" started by James Moody, but that doesn't seem to help.

Do you have a "friendly" system administrator who could give you write permission to that file only ?

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Re: No write access for stars.ini

Thu, 27 January 2005 10:01

Sober Council

Crewman 1st Class

Messages: 24
Registered: January 2005
Location: High Peak, Derbyshire, UK

First of all, allow me to apologise for dredging this up...
But its recently become an issue, as i have no access to the registry & can only *read* the contents of C:\Windows.
(yea... Work is tough, but the admins are tougher! Razz

)

Is it at all possible to workaround this by having Stars! write its .ini file somewhere else?
Or am i just going to have to live with remembering my serial & reseting everything at each startup?

hehe, thanks in advance.

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Re: No write access for stars.ini

Thu, 27 January 2005 11:24

wizard

Officer Cadet 3rd Year

Messages: 279
Registered: January 2004
Location: Aachen, Germany

Sober Council wrote on Thu, 27 January 2005 16:01

Or am i just going to have to live with remembering my serial & reseting everything at each startup?

You'll get used to make the game settings quite fast. I have yet to learn my S/N, I always copy and paste it...

Balloon

Andreas / wizard

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Re: No write access for stars.ini

Thu, 27 January 2005 14:48

Sober Council

Crewman 1st Class

Messages: 24
Registered: January 2005
Location: High Peak, Derbyshire, UK

Ah, well.....
Tis a small price to pay i suppose Smile

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Re: No write access for stars.ini

Sun, 30 January 2005 22:40

Dogthinkers

Commander

Messages: 1316
Registered: August 2003
Location: Hiding from Meklar

If I were you I'd make friends with an admin and ask them to add the file and grant you access to it. Cool

Alternatively you could try this command, which might got you access to the registry (if they used the simplest method of locking down the registry):
"REG add HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Syst em /v DisableRegistryTools /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f"
But if your admins aren't very friendly, and you like your job, then I really wouldn't recommend tinkering at all. Rolling Eyes

[edit: there's no space between 'syst' and 'em', but for some reason the forum keeps adding it back whenever I remove it???]

[Updated on: Mon, 31 January 2005 03:40] by Moderator

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Re: No write access for stars.ini

Mon, 31 January 2005 04:29

Sober Council

Crewman 1st Class

Messages: 24
Registered: January 2005
Location: High Peak, Derbyshire, UK

Hehe, thankyou Dt.
Tis a most enlightened method of aquireing access, however i think i'll pass. For now....

Friendly admins?
They're all sub-contractors & take things far too seriously.
I mean, the only thing worth taking seriously is galatic domination. Surely? Razz

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Re: No write access for stars.ini

Tue, 01 February 2005 21:00

Ptolemy

Commander

Messages: 1008
Registered: September 2003
Location: Finland

Depending on which operating system is in use one the workstation you may try aliasing the Windows directory to another local directory. There isn't a lot of flexibility here though since Stars was written back in Windows 3.1 days. I took a look in the .exe file and, as expected, the executable gets the Windows directory using the 'c' %s system constant to get the system directory for reading and writing the ini file. Editing the registry probably won't help since the .ini file isn't actually registered - for that matter, Stars itself doesn't have to be registered. One thing that many programs did long ago was look first in the local directory for the ini file - I tried this but Stars does not do so - it goes straight to the Windows directory.

One thing you could do if the system has diskette startup is to boot the system using a Windows 98 diskette and boot into dos. An XP CD can also get you into the file system for an XP system. You could then simply copy the ini file into the windows directory.

Ptolemy

Though we often ask how and why, we must also do to get the answers to the questions.

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Re: No write access for stars.ini

Wed, 02 February 2005 03:07

Micha

Commander

Duel Club Champion 2005

Duel Club Champion 2004

Messages: 2342
Registered: November 2002
Location: Belgium GMT +1

Aren't there windows simulators that run under windows? Grin

Like you could run a win3.1 simulator on your xp system? (or is it called emulator?)

mch

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Re: No write access for stars.ini

Wed, 02 February 2005 03:57

Micha

Commander

Duel Club Champion 2005

Duel Club Champion 2004

Messages: 2342
Registered: November 2002
Location: Belgium GMT +1

Quote:

Aren't there windows simulators that run under windows? Grin

Like you could run a win3.1 simulator on your xp system? (or is it called emulator?)

Did some searching ... How about : http://bochs.sourceforge.net/
I'm not very technical, but you can somehow compile a computer in your computer and install the operating system of your choice ... ? So you could run win98 or whatever on it and install Stars! ... that would be usin the emulated win dir to write the stars.ini to ...

mch

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Re: No write access for stars.ini

Wed, 02 February 2005 10:49

Ptolemy

Commander

Messages: 1008
Registered: September 2003
Location: Finland

It might work by setting up an emulator. The main question would be if the workstation in question would allow the user to install it.

Ptolemy

Though we often ask how and why, we must also do to get the answers to the questions.

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Re: No write access for stars.ini

Thu, 03 February 2005 10:43

Sober Council

Crewman 1st Class

Messages: 24
Registered: January 2005
Location: High Peak, Derbyshire, UK

Hehe....
All downloadable files are automatically blocked on our lovely system.
NT is a dream for control freaks. Rolling Eyes

Anyway, Wizard is right....
The settings only take a second or two. (Still leaves the autobuild tho. Razz

)

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