PG3 and multiple account PC's

Just a quick question,

From what I am seeing on my machines, the PG GUI executable shortcut is placed in the startup folder of the account from which PG was initially installed, not the equivalent all users folder. Didn't see anything in the help file related to this - it was admittedly a quick scan. Doesn't seem quite right to me. Comments/advice?

Blue

 

The GUI only needs to run in one account, pgaccount.exe runs in every account to handle things like execution protection.

 

Hi Jason

First, great version of PG. So far seems very smooth!

In terms of the GUI only being in the startup folder of the acocunt that was used to install PG that is understandable but..........unless I have missed a trick you will not get a warning, ie, ballon tip , if something occurs that PG picks up, ie, application trying to install a driver, unless the GUI is running.

So really, should not the GUI be available in the sys tray for all accounts?

Any guidance would be much appreciated.

Best regards


Baldrick

 

That was my thinking Baldrick,

I did a quick check - the dialog boxes requesting action will pop up without the GUI active - guess that is now handled by pgaccount. What you don't have without the GUI is the ability to adjust settings - as expected.

If you do want the GUI to automatically launch under every acccount, simply move the startup shortcut from the installation user's account startup folder to the equivalent folder under All Users (C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Start Menu\Programs\Startup) Probably a bad idea - see next two posts.

Blue

 

Only one instance of the GUI can ran at one time though. This is due to security.

However the GUI part can run in any admin account.

 

Which is probably why the suggestion I made above, moving the shortcut to the All Users location might be an exceptionally bad idea.

I've been putting PG through the wringer this evening. Now, to test things, I did relocate the shortcut to All Users, logged into my PC, then performed a fast user switch to a second account. This combination will cause two instances of each process to launch. There does appear to be some contention in the background. I didn't push it and the system did not lock on me, but I believe this is the series of steps may have been the cause of the only glitch experienced - loss of the protected process list/alerts/security windows and having PG come up in a disabled state after a reboot. Not sure if that is the actual cause since I can seem to replicate it performing the same operations again. Punch line - keep the shortcut in the original location.

Blue

 

As long as you log off from other running accounts, using the RunAs command to load PG in a limited user account (as Administrator) will give access to all the GUI alerts and configuration etc.

I have been doing this through versions since 2, including all the version 3 beta, with no ill effects. I like the way I can see the icon in the tray while I surf with a limited user account, and be able to respond to any alerts caused by programs.