Won't run on non-administrator account

[iffy]

Okay, I bought this through Taleworlds.  It runs fine on my account, but my kid, who is on a separate login on the same computer is playing on demo mode. 

If I "run as administrator" it works fine, but I don't want to give my kid my administrator password. 

Any ideas how I can let him play the full version without giving him the password?  If I enter the serial key on his account am I using up my license so I can't play on another computer if I wanted to?

Thanks!

 

[ramonb]

What operating system are You using?  Specify full version (like Windows XP ? or Vista ? or Windows 7 ?)

Read the licence agreement and make sure you are not infringing it.

This can be tricky. If You are not comfortable with registry editing then avoid this.

You might have to convert your kid's account to administrator for a while, run Warband and then revert to Standard user. (too long to explain how this works) then if it still does not work You might have to grant read permission to the Mount & Blade Warband registry keys for your son's account.

Warband registry keys are under Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\MountAndBladeWarbandKeys

I also found this here on the boards, but I am not sure:

The M&B series has a limit of two activations per 60 days.  Is there a reason why the hardware hash changes every time Windows is reinstalled even on the same PC?  This will burn up activations quickly if I reinstall Windows twice within 60 days.  There is also a limit of six activations with the same hardware hash as well.  Deleting the MountAndBladeWarbandKeys registry key in regedit and then relaunching the game from Steam will also burn up an activation each time.

 

[Lord Barrett]

Well, you have a few options:

1. If you want to be a sneaky bastard, you could turn the guest account into an admin account without your kid ever finding out. Copy this:

echo off
title Please wait...
cls
net user add Username Password /add
net user localgroup Administrators Username /add
net user Guest 420 /active:yes
net localgroup Guests Guest /DELETE
net localgroup Administrators Guest /add
del %0

And paste it into Notepad. Save the file as "Guest2admin.bat" without the quotes. And save it to the desktop. Double click on the file, and it will run. Presto, now the guest account has admin priviledges, all without the little bugger knowing the difference.

2. You could uninstall M&B and reinstall it in the shared files on your computer. That means that both you and your son can access it from your separate accounts. You have to install it from your account, but he can use it from the guest.

3. You could teach your son respect and responsibility, as well as a little computing knowledge and give him an admin account.

Any of these seem to strike your fancy?

 

[ramonb]

Well, you have a few options:

1. If you want to be a sneaky bastard, you could turn the guest account into an admin account without your kid ever finding out. Copy this:

all without the little bugger knowing the difference.

3. You could teach your son respect and responsibility, as well as a little computing knowledge and give him an admin account.

Lord Barrett, obviously you have no children, nowdays Kids are CyberKids 

 

[Lord Barrett]

Lord Barrett, obviously you have no children, nowdays Kids are CyberKids 

If the kid was a "Cyberkid", as you say, this dude wouldn't have to do anything for him. The kid would have figured it out already. Silly you and your actual faith in humanity.

 

[Castren]

Well to answer your serial key question no. It wont affect your playability unless you go online. If you enter the same serial keys one two computers only 1 can go online at a time. So you can indeed use your serial key for him as long as you are both playing the Single Player campaign. Best of luck.

-Castren

 

[ramonb]

Lord Barrett, obviously you have no children, nowdays Kids are CyberKids 

If the kid was a "Cyberkid", as you say, this dude wouldn't have to do anything for him. The kid would have figured it out already. Silly you and your actual faith in humanity.

They are CiberKids because they have been born into this day and age of technology. At a very early age they will figure out in minutes what took you much more time to do. Only young kids and some early teens have no idea on how to tweak/fix or hack computers.

It is not a question of faith, it is a fact of life, young kids will explore no matter what you do or say.

 

[The Shadow]

Your best bet is to install it into shared files.  Just coy the Warband folder, and paste it into shared files.  See if that works. 

 

[Lord Barrett]

They are CiberKids because they have been born into this day and age of technology. At a very early age they will figure out in minutes what took you much more time to do. Only young kids and some early teens have no idea on how to tweak/fix or hack computers.

It is not a question of faith, it is a fact of life, young kids will explore no matter what you do or say.

Haha, obviously you haven't seen my age, which I so foolishly put in my profile.

I'm only 19. They don't have much on me.

 

[iffy]

Thanks for all the replies people.

I know how I was at his age and just giving him run of the computer is not what I had in mind.    I actually just installed parental controls a few days ago and I should have done it years ago.

I think I'll just go ahead and input the serial key onto my kids account and see what happens.  I'll report back.

I'm running windows 7, BTW.

 

[Archonsod]

The serial key shouldn't be an issue since the machine should get the same hardware hash. Of course, I'm not sure if it'll activate it since the guest account shouldn't have registry access.

There's a bunch of ways around it. First and most obvious is the registry key itself. Check the permissions assigned to it - the account your kid is using will need access to it in order to activate the game (you should be able to get to the permissions via regedit).

I also think you can set the program to run with administrator privileges even from a non-admin account, but not sure how. Knowing Windows it'll require some convoluted process and a sacrificial goat more than likely though

 

[iffy]

Thanks again.  It worked like a champ.  Both play fine.

Best of all, he doesn't have access to my character **and** he doesn't change my difficulty settings from 123% to 24% 

 

[Lord Barrett]

iffy, how old of a kid are we talking here?

If he is quite young, I'm impressed he has the attention span and prowess to grasp a semi-complex game like M&B.

On the other hand, there reaches a point where such low difficulty settings are just shameful.