Problem:
Some Visual Pinball tables will crash with 'permission' related script errors when using a non-admin account in Windows Vista and XP.
Errors such as:
Script Error
Line: 350
Permission Denied
This often happens at table startup or when a coin is inserted, and is often due to a script trying to write or modify a file at the root of the C: drive. It can also happen if the table is in a folder "owned" by another user (more on this in a moment).
The common method to overcome such problems is to use an administrator account, or under Vista, to right-click the table or program and 'Run as Administrator". This works but it can be problematic for some, and impractical in many circumstances.
There is a convenient solution that doesn't involve running as an administrator, but it does involve the use of another free program. That program is Sandboxie. At the risk of looking like a spammer I'm going to tell you all about Sandboxie in a moment, but if you have Sandboxie installed you can create a shortcut or just right-click and launch a table 'sandboxed' using any kind of user account, without generating permission denied errors. A secondary benefit of using Sandboxie is that it removes all risk of damage from potentially malicious scripts.
As an aside, addressing a similar problem, I'd like to mention that I was recently setting up Visual Pinball on an old installation of XP, and when running it from a standard user account I discovered I couldn't even insert a coin on most tables without generating errors. It turns out the VP folder was 'owned' by the admin and that other users had no rights to modify anything in those directories. Meaning that VP's User folder was off limits, which is where most table scripts save data. The quick solution for restoring rights to everyone was to run a command line in the VP folder, as an admin. This only works on an NTFS formatted drive, but the command is:
cacls /T /G everyone:F
More info on cacls here: http://www.ss64.com/nt/cacls.html
This cacls solution is only for a specific and rare problem with folder/file ownership. The command is powerful and should not be used carelessly. This solution does NOT apply to the occasional 'permission denied' problem and I am not advocating it's use by anyone who doesn't fully understand the situation I've just described.
I am however advocating the use of Sandboxie as an alternative to running as admin. In fact, in general, I think Sandboxie's greatness surpasses that of Visual Pinball, and you folks know that's saying a lot.
Here's the deal. Sandboxie, which is free for personal use, runs programs in an isolated 'sandbox', intercepting all file system and registry calls that a program makes, and writes them to a sandbox folder instead of your real registry and file system. The result is that any program running in a sandbox cannot alter your system in any way, and thus administrator rights become a non-issue.
The sandbox folder contains a virtual 'branch' of your operating system, created as needed. In the case of Visual Pinball the table script that wants to write to the root of the C: drive gets intercepted and the data file is written to a mere folder called 'C' in your sandbox.
Why use Sandboxie anyway? By default Sandboxie lets things running in a sandbox read from your system (registry and files), but doesn't let anything write to it. All changed files, new files, or registry entries are written to a sandbox folder. It's the perfect way to test new software, just install it to a sandbox, run it, delete the sandbox when you're done and your system is as clean and untouched as when you started. You could also set up permanent sandboxes too, for specific tasks.
If you sandbox your web browser and visit a malicious site, get infected with spyware, toolbars and keyloggers and such, no worries, it all happened in the sandbox. Close all processes in the sandbox (the Sandboxie control serves as a task manger), delete the sandbox, and it's as if nothing ever happened on your computer.
Sandboxie is a tiny 500kb download but is amazingly powerful. It installs (without rebooting) a tiny device driver and a service that runs in the background but the resource usage is so small it's meaningless, and the impact on programs running sandboxed is usually non-existant. It's thoroughly configurable, you can let sandboxes have full write access to specific places on your drives or registry, or you can block anything from even being read if you wish. You can block specific programs from being run and you can even deny internet access to programs in a sandbox, thus giving you a program specific firewall.
The site ( http://sandboxie.com ) and forum are full of good help and support, and I will add that the author and the program are trustworthy. I suggest looking into it and giving it a try, it's easy to use and it installs and uninstalls cleanly if you don't like it. I'm only telling you about it because I think it's the greatest thing since Visual Pinball. ;)
I hope this info prooves helpful. I might be around for a short time but this is likely to be my only posting of substance. FYI, I discovered VP in 2002, drifted, dabbled again in 2006, drifted again, and came back just recently. My interest is exclusively in original VP tables. I've never been a community participant and that's not likely to change. God bless!
Edited by dluppr, 18 May 2009 - 02:43 AM.
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