Guild Wars 2

I was hoping this would get fixed on its own, since you’d think professional programmers would know the basics of Windows programming, but apparently not.

A game shouldn’t have to have Administrator privileges every time it’s run. If you were storing the game data in PROGRAMDATA where it’s supposed to go (as per the Windows Logo Software Program guidelines) instead of in PROGRAMFILES, you wouldn’t need to.

I don’t have this issue. Unfortunately, I don’t know why you do. It isn’t a problem in the code or everyone would have this problem.

My copy doesn’t require me to do that. I don’t even have the game installed in the default directory (all my games are located in a games folder and not Program Files or Program Files (x86)). The exe isn’t tagged in the compatibility tab as “Run as Admin” either.

I have no idea why your install is requiring you to do that.

Post more info. What did you use to install it etc. I have no issues in either vista or win 7 running as a user with restricted privilidges. However, I still have it in the beta install folder.

If you do the default install, it puts everything in the “Program Files (x86)” directory. If UAC is enabled on the system, only processes with admin privileges are allowed to write to this directory, which means GW2 asks for admin permissions every time it starts and tries to update itself. It should be storing non-static program data in the “Program Data” directory, which only requires user level access to write to.

abomally.2694:

I don’t have this issue. Unfortunately, I don’t know why you do. It isn’t a problem in the code or everyone would have this problem.

If they aren’t then either:

1. They’re not installing to the Program Files directory.
2. They have UAC disabled
3. They have it set to Run as Administrator

All three of those options reduce the security of the system and really shouldn’t be required to run a game.

I have UAC disabled because it’s a useless, annoying, weak attempt to emulate linux type of security which ultimately does nothing but delay whatever it is I am trying to get done.

All of my games are installed on my D partition. This keeps my OS partition used-space reasonably small. One reason for this is to keep my partition image backups small. In the case that I do something that breaks my operating system; I can restore my entire system within about 15 minutes.

I recommend NOT using a limited user account if at all possible. Many programs simply will not work correctly unless they are run on an admin account. Windows fails at (limited) user accounts. Linux does it correctly.

If you are on an admin account, then you likely have some permissions problems.

Stormy Dragon.9210:

abomally.2694:

I don’t have this issue. Unfortunately, I don’t know why you do. It isn’t a problem in the code or everyone would have this problem.

If they aren’t then either:

1. They’re not installing to the Program Files directory.
2. They have UAC disabled
3. They have it set to Run as Administrator

All three of those options reduce the security of the system and really shouldn’t be required to run a game.

Actually I’ve done none of those yet it doesn’t prompt me ever when I launch it.

1) The game is installed in C:\Games\Guild Wars 2
2) My UAC is set to the default, one down from max.
3) The game’s exe does NOT have Run as Admin set in settings.

Behellagh.1468:

1) The game is installed in C:\Games\Guild Wars 2

Which would be “not installing to the Program Files directory”. This also makes the computer less secure as the executable or in a place where any process is free to modify the executable however they like.

Stormy Dragon.9210:

Behellagh.1468:

1) The game is installed in C:\Games\Guild Wars 2

Which would be “not installing to the Program Files directory”. This also makes the computer less secure as the executable or in a place where any process is free to modify the executable however they like.

It’s a game, not nuclear missile launching software. And what does that have to do with UAC not coming up when I run the game?

Behellagh.1468:

Stormy Dragon.9210:

Behellagh.1468:

1) The game is installed in C:\Games\Guild Wars 2

Which would be “not installing to the Program Files directory”. This also makes the computer less secure as the executable or in a place where any process is free to modify the executable however they like.

It’s a game, not nuclear missile launching software. And what does that have to do with UAC not coming up when I run the game?

Unless you give the folder different permissions, the default of a folder like this is for any authenticated user to have access as well as administrators and the system. The Program Files directories have specific permissions set up on them to limit access, and this is why UAC triggers for various actions and tasks involving these folders.

In a default C:\Games directory, you can modify folder contents, a program such as GW2 can modify folder contents (and thus doesn’t need to ask you when it checks for an update or downloads new content to the .dat file and updates the game), and malicious programs could write and modify files in this directory.