Hardware installation privileges?

[Charlatat]

Ok, before anyone says the obvious "make the user a member of the Administrator's group", I wanted to see if anyone knew of registry/file/security permissions that would grant a normal (restricted) user the ability to install hardware (at least a USB device)... I've used RegMon/FileMon to determine "Access Denied" entries, did a snapshot of a successful device installation and gave permissions to ALL changed regkeys/files... Went into GPEdit and gave normal Users group the same User Rights as Administrators... but I still get an "Access is Denied" error message. The appropriate drivers are already present on the machine and everyone has rights to c:\winnt\driver cache. Can anyone help me out? Thnks

 

[Hollster]

Windows 2000 does have an option that allows users to install software with elevated prilvileges. It becomes very useful in a restricted environment. This might help you.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;259459

 

[Charlatat]

Hmm, that's similiar to what I'm looking for... but it won't do me any good with hardware installation, though. Thanks for the suggestion

 

[Charlatat]

Anyone? Any suggestions would be appreciated... thanks

 

[MakeItSo]

Charlatat,
Try with KB article 219435
(

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;219435&Product=win2000)

This article describes how to configure Windows 2000 to permit users who do not have administrator or power user permissions to install and uninstall device drivers in Windows 2000.
...
[blue]
You can also update drivers for a specific computer by using a specific user. At a command prompt, type the following command, where machine is your computer name, and then press ENTER:
runas /u:machine\administrator mmc.exe devmgmt.msc
[/blue]

Hope this helps,
MakeItSo


Andreas Galambos
EDP / Technical Support Specialist
Bowne Global Solutions Wuppertal, Germany
(andreas.galambos@bowneglobal.de)
HP:

http://home.arcor.de/andygalambos