Ordinary users cannot write to CD-R

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I have a laboratory computer shared by a number of users who need to be able to write data to CD. The computer is running Windows 2000 Pro and the burning software is Nero, latest version. Writing to CD is simple and very reliable, but only if the user has administrator status. Ordinary users are barred from the CD writer by Nero. For obvious reasons I do not wish to give all the users administrative rights. The Nero support site is no help and their tech support dept are not answering emails (there is no telephone support). It does not seem to be a matter of folder or registry key permissions as I have changed those which appear to be relevant with no success. The help file describes a Nero Security setting tab which should give ordinary users access, but this tab is missing. A search of the web and newsgroups shows that this problem has been around for some time, my system is not unique, but no effective solution has been proposed.

I am hoping that a knowledgeable member of the Lounge may be able to suggest which administrator right is involved, or may be able to explain what causes the problem and say whether a solution is possible or not. This is likely to be a problem on other systems in my department as well, so any suggestions will be gratefully received.

Thanks in advance

Malcolm

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Usually this type of problems occurs when application was installed for Administrator accounts only. To avoid it, use Installation Mode: from Control Panel, double-click “Add/Remove Programs”, then “Add New Program” bitton on the left pane. On the next screen, click “CD or Floppy”, then “Browse” and point it to nero5572.exe (or whatever). It will be better if you uninstall previous installation of Nero first.

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Thank you for the suggestion, I’m afraid that Nero insists on being installed by an account with administrator permissions so I cannot try this.

I still have not received a reply from tech support to my email, but with some difficulty I tracked down a general phone number (+49-7248911800) which eventually got me to support. They were familiar with the problem and gave me some instructions and supplied a set of patch files which seem to have worked. Examination reveals that various registry settings are changed, but I cannot make out whether they are generic settings or specific to Nero, or what they do, as I’m not familiar with the syntax of .INF files. This does not give me a particularly good impression of aHead Software, I do not see why they could not either acknowledge my email in reasonable time, even if they were too busy to reply in full, or put the solution and files on the support website.

Malcolm

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If you install as Admin, can a user in the Power Users group use the CDR device?

Giving them Power User access might be a less risky workaround for now.

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I haven’t figure out how “Run As…” works, so this might be out in left field. Can you assign a “higher powered” password to a device somehow?

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Hope this trail hasn’t gone cold.

I’ve just hit the same snag, and no the Power User solution does not work. The work around I have at this time is to give a trusted user Administrator rights and she has to do all the burning. Not a good solution at all, so I am hoping for something a little more professional.

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Last night I was at my night school class for Windows 200 Server and on our break we got talking about silly little problems that pop up with computers (magic?). Anyway someone brought up an almost identical problem, it was with different software than Nero but the results were identical. After we talked about rights and permissions etc. he said the solotion wasn’t with Win2000 at all, it was a problem with the software and after downloding a patch for the software it worked fine. I’m new at this so I don’t remember all the details, but the upshot was that the default settings with the software conflicted with the user settings in Windows.
Let me know if this doesn’t help and I will forward your message to him for a better explaination.

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