Installing programs in XP

[elkinm]

Hi, Please read this as I really need the help.

I need to install a program such that it would run equally with ANY and ALL users. It is APSOLUTELY no good to me if only the user that installs it can use it. I want it to be added to the start menu and run at startup if necessary for ALL users. And it is very important that if I change some settings for one user they are changed for all users as well.

I thought that such programs had to be installed using the Administrator account as I did. When I restarted my system and logged in into my account, which is in the administrator group of course, the program did not run at startup and a quick run of msconfig showed that it was not entered to run at startup. I had to manually open the program and set it to run at startup.

Basically I flat out NEED to know how to this. This is no big deal as I am currently the only user for my system, but having to add and configure programs with every account would be a VERY big problem with multiple accounts. Although the idea of installing a program only for myself is nice BUT I would gladly sacrifice it and ALL other personal user settings to be able to install programs for all users.

Please, Somebody help me. There has to be somebody out there who knows how to fix this problem or at least deal with it.

Thank You
Michael Elkin

 

[elkinm]

Also I noticed that the startup connand for that program showed up in the HKEY_CURRENT_USER part of the registry. While the others are in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE section. I could move the startup script which would start it up normaly for any user, but it still does not fix the real problem as I still have to do something for every program after install.

Thanks aggain

 

[hoomza444]

well for win2k, all you have to do is jsut right click on the start menu, and the properties come up. htere is an option that says USE PERSONALIZED START MENUS....just uncheck that. i am sure that XP should have something similar to that so try it out.

then for the startup thing....if there is an option in the program, you can set that. otherwise the easiest solution is to just create a shortcut to the program, and set the properties for it to say, start minimized, and then move the shortcut into the STARTUP folder in ur startmenu\program menu. then it will start up every time and since it is a shared start menu it shoudl work for every user.

hope that helps. good luck.

 

[elkinm]

In that case will it hurt to put it into the run at startup section of HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE instead of current usser. And one other thing, the Layout.ini file in Windows\perfetch has my folders listed as well as many other system and many non system or even non-program files. Are these entreies imposrtant for performance or can I just delete most of the entreis.

Thanks