Impossible to use Vista in Large Environments

Hello,

It seems that Vista is built on a home use mind instead of a large
commericial network mind. It just makes it almost impossible to run
applications in a very large environment.

I'll give you an example.

In XP SP2, you end up where you can't run Help files (CHM) over the network
drive. The solution is to install the help file on the local machine.
Now, with Vista, you can't have access to the local machine's Program Files
directory without administrator access.

What maybe Microsoft doesn't know but there are apps that don't go on local
C drives. In our case, we have 200+ user workstations and those users
share a path to the server to run the application. It would be impossible
to store the app locally as everytime the app changes, we'd have to go to
all 200 workstations and do an install.

Now, during an upgrade, the system recognizes it through the local_machine
registry key, and if not up to date, we can have the system install the help
file in a c:\Program Files\MyProgram folder.

Now, you can read LOCAL_MACHINE's registry key but not update it without
rights when UAC is turned on. On top of that, the Program files\MyProgram
folder becomes the virtualized folder, so now each user has a copy of the
online help. So, we'd most to the USERS key, which can be read and
updated, and each users now has an exact copy of the online help - even if 4
different people signon to the same box since this is a public box.

We are not going to go around to 200+ workstations and install software
under administrator.

How does corporate software work in a corporate environment - with regards
to help files (CHM) - so the help files are up to date. We can't even make
a change to a help files and put it on the network without some big
installation nightmare.

Another option is to use a directory off the root install. (c:\MyProgram) -
but again, does this mean it gets updated with each user as we don't have
access to the LOCAL_MACHINE's registry key without the program's manifest
having asAdministrator rights?

I'd like to hear some examples of corporate software VISTA environments with
regards to software being executed from file servers and dealing with the
F1-Help key. Maybe if Microsoft made CHM files virus free (and non-macro
driven), there wouldn't be an issue!

-Robert

You should ask the part about the help system in
microsoft.public.helpauthoring, as that's where the Help MVPs hang out and
can probably provide an answer.

Dana Cline - MCE MVP

"Robert Paresi" <FirstInitialLastName@innquest.com> wrote in message
news:878DBE6C-22C2-44AE-B96A-54F338D1B140@microsoft.com...
> Hello,
>
> It seems that Vista is built on a home use mind instead of a large
> commericial network mind. It just makes it almost impossible to run
> applications in a very large environment.
>
> I'll give you an example.
>
> In XP SP2, you end up where you can't run Help files (CHM) over the
> network drive. The solution is to install the help file on the local
> machine. Now, with Vista, you can't have access to the local machine's
> Program Files directory without administrator access.
>
> What maybe Microsoft doesn't know but there are apps that don't go on
> local C drives. In our case, we have 200+ user workstations and those
> users share a path to the server to run the application. It would be
> impossible to store the app locally as everytime the app changes, we'd
> have to go to all 200 workstations and do an install.
>
> Now, during an upgrade, the system recognizes it through the local_machine
> registry key, and if not up to date, we can have the system install the
> help file in a c:\Program Files\MyProgram folder.
>
> Now, you can read LOCAL_MACHINE's registry key but not update it without
> rights when UAC is turned on. On top of that, the Program
> files\MyProgram folder becomes the virtualized folder, so now each user
> has a copy of the online help. So, we'd most to the USERS key, which can
> be read and updated, and each users now has an exact copy of the online
> help - even if 4 different people signon to the same box since this is a
> public box.
>
> We are not going to go around to 200+ workstations and install software
> under administrator.
>
> How does corporate software work in a corporate environment - with regards
> to help files (CHM) - so the help files are up to date. We can't even
> make a change to a help files and put it on the network without some big
> installation nightmare.
>
> Another option is to use a directory off the root install.
> (c:\MyProgram) - but again, does this mean it gets updated with each user
> as we don't have access to the LOCAL_MACHINE's registry key without the
> program's manifest having asAdministrator rights?
>
> I'd like to hear some examples of corporate software VISTA environments
> with regards to software being executed from file servers and dealing with
> the F1-Help key. Maybe if Microsoft made CHM files virus free (and
> non-macro driven), there wouldn't be an issue!
>
> -Robert