Thanks very much for WeatherWatcher - I've tried others, but I really like WW. I'm using 5.6.20a running on XP pro. I find it works fine when logged in as admin, but not when logged in as a normal (limited) user. I get the message that WW is downloading weather data, but it does not update the forcast or current data. It does not even appear to be accessing the internet. I'm using a dialup connection, no proxy, no other problems.

Do others succeed when running under a limited user account?
If so, how did you install? (I installed as admin, and it still works - only - from that account).
If not, please make it possible to use when not admin - big difference in security!

Thank you.

Yes, we've all been there and encountered that at some point. The leading solution at this point is to not install WW to the default folder but rather to each user's profile folder. ie C:\Document and Settings\user-id\Application Data\Weather Watcher

It makes installing new releases and upgrades a pain but until support for alternate locations to the html files (or alternate locations for the skins folders) is added it's the only alternative that works.

hth

Thanks you, EdP, for the response. But... I'm on my work computer where WW works fine as administrator and I don't try to use other accounts, running XP Pro. I don't see any WW files or folders anywhere under Documents and Settings (other than the start menu shortcuts). Can you clarify what you mean?
Oh, I think you mean install the actual program to each user's profile instead of to Program Files, right? I see what you mean by a lot of work to maintain.
I'll try giving all users read/write access to C:\Program Files\Weather Watcher and children. Has that been tried already?
Thanks,
William

Yes, that is what I mean.


I don't recall if some else has tried it. I know I haven't. If it works for you please let us know and the steps you took to set it up.

On a pc with multiple admin accounts shaing a common WW folder had some disadvantages. If user A set WW to view one city and user B set it to view another the user with the most recent update wins. When the user who wasn't using the pc gets back on they see the other user's WW data until they update their WW data.

If WW would auto update when a user was reactivated it wouldn't be so bad otherwise its a thing to manually remember to do each time.

BTW The problem would also manifest itself I believe if the different users choose different skins.

hmmmm A different set of skins approach could prove to be something worth trying. Each forecast skin has it's own set of html files. If you create multiple copies of the forecast skin folders, one copy for each user, ie A Splendid, B Splendid, C Splendid, it may work with each user having their own view and it not being overlaid by another user's setup. Still need the read/write access.

And the write access should only need to be for the Forecast skins folder I believe. And you could refine it to each user id only having write access to their assigned skin folder.

Wow. This could be the perfect solution to the problem.

If you experiment with this please let us know your results.

Update

Write access has to be to the whole WW folder. WW writes its alerts to the high level folder.

Not sure of the impact to the multiuser setup concept. A user id keyed in to an area with an alert shouldn't impact other ids with different cities not having alerts but two ids keyed to different cities both of which are having different alerts might create a problem.

Not necessarily a major stumbling block but rather something to be aware of.

Yes, limited users can use WW.
First I tried giving C:\program files\weather watcher\skins and below modify access to users - no good.
Then I tried giving C:\program files\weather watcher and below full control to everybody - all users can update & view the current forecast.
Then I tried giving C:\program files\weather watcher and below modify access to users - all users can still update & view the current forecast.
I have not investigated the effects on others users of some users changing the settings.
-William

Thanks wslb. It appears that modify will work for systems that have run at least 1 WW update which creates the html forecast files for the active forecast skin.

But there are alert.txt files which are created when an alert is issued and deleted when the alert expires.

I think weather maps creates an html file initially and the MapsHistory file. Then there is the case of a user that selects a new skin for the 1st time. Modify might impede these tasks. You might want to consider leaving the access set to read/write for a while.

If WW could accept a user id parm when invoked and direct it's file writing to the corresponding user profile's Application Data folder this would be a lot easier.

(updated)

Modify does include read and write access along with list contents. For the most part modify just doesn't include changing permissions.

Does read and write access include file create and delete access? If so that plus copies of the Forecast skin folders for each user id should yield a very functional multiuser WW system.

Yes, Modify includes:

Traverse Folder / Execute File
List folder / Read Data
Read Attributes
Read Extended Attributes
Create Files / Write Data
Create Folders / Append Data
Write Attributes
Write Extended Attributes
Delete
Read Permissions

Each of these can be individually set via sercurity - advanced - edit (using XP Pro).

OK, I did all that, and now WW works from my limited user account.

Problem: the temp icon says NA. The condition icon is NA too. Hovering the temp icon gives NA, NA, NA.

If I use the icon to open WW, it shows everything just as it should. But the tray icon still says NA.

This is Windows XP Media Edition 2003, btw. I'm not brilliant at the Admin stuff, so I could have done something incredibly stupid.

I did set the font for the temp icon to Times New Roman, but even if it's messed up because of that I don't see why that would affect the condition icon.

Edit: I have that folder set to Full Control for the limited user.

Weird!! If you manually try to Update the forecast data does the update work? Have you rebooted since installing WW?

Yes, many times, but not since changing those permissions. And it's displaying fine on my Admin user. I'll try rebooting.

OK, that was really stupid. I had permissioned the wrong user. I had permissioned "Xopher," which happens to be the login name of my limited user, but to my system, that's the Owner user (logged in as "Owner"), and "User" is the class to which "Xopher" belongs.

I just used a brute-force approach and gave Full Control to all the users and user classes in the window.

It now works perfectly. Thanks for your help!

XP bad, WW good.