Open Office won't start in terminal session as regular user

[dasein47]

I have a somewhat strange problem.

W2K with terminal services enabled in application mode. I've installed open office. When logging in as administrator i can run open office just fine. But if i log in as a regular user - as members of the Users group only, it will not run any office program when starting starting them. after launching it, it runs in taskmanager for about 5 seconds or so and then disappears with no error or event log, indicating that it is running or has crashed or anything.

If i put them in the administrators group or even the power users group, they can launch the program. I need to prevent them from installing software on their terminal sessions.

Any ideas?

Kip Tobin

 

[sonnysavage]

Since OpenOffice.org is Java based, I'd guess that it has to do with you Java Virtual Machine security settings. Compare the Power User security to the regular User security. It must be there some place.

Unfortunately my Windows 2000 knowlege is pretty limited, but this forum hardly has any action on it, so I thought I'd take a stab at answering your question.

I hope that helps.

 

[dasein47]

sonnysavage-

thanks for the suggestion, but i don't even have java installed on a server i'm testing this on and the administrator account works fine but the reg user doesn't, so i'm doubting it's a java setting.

i think your suggestion to copmare user priveleges between reg user and power/administrator users is right.

i also found a doc online that describes how to protect the registry so that only administrators can modify the registry. it think this may work for what they need.

thanks for your reply.

kip

 

[Rabbi]

I have the same problem, but not using terminal services.
I installed OOo as administrator but it won't work for anyone except administrators or power users, as I am running a network in a school the last thing I want to do is make all the little dears power users of all PCs in the school!!!!

 

[dasein47]

hello all,

thanks for your wonderful suggestions. they kicked off the right path for i've finally figured out what was best for our client here.

as far as getting open office to run, it's screwy. i had to put them in the power users group so they had elevated priveleges. open office doesn't seem to want to run unless you start soffice.exe in the taskbar. when you do this, you are able to start ALL the office progs, but this isn't that big of a deal.

what i did to lock down this terminal server is this:
opened gpedit.msc on local machine and disabled any user from save program to disk in IE (stopping dloads from the source), disabled edit registry remotely, allow only these applications (and listed the *.exes) and disallow these applications (listing the *.exe s again). inadvertently, i locked the administrator out of being able to anything as well, which is not good bec admins need to install progs from time to time.

this environ is ADS and i was able to log into a DC, open up mmc, add/remove group policy snap-in, browse for which computer i wish to manage it's GPO (defaults to local computer), selected computer and i was able to remove the policies by simply right clicking on the remote computer group policy mmc, choosing properties and disabling both computer and user config setttings. this would allow administrator to disable this quickly, install what he/she wants and then reenable these policies.

while this does block out administrators (locally) from doing anything while policy enabled, it completely locks down the machine so only certain apps can be accessed and others are explicitly denied (like setup.exe and install.exe).

i know this probably isn't the most ideal scenario, but it works without having to setup and group policies domain wide.

my two cents. hope it helps anyone.

kip

 

[Rabbi]

After much auditing etc.I think I may have found an answer:- the folder <whereever your OOo installation is> \OpenOffice.org1.0\user\config\registry\instance\org\openoffice\Office needs to be writeable by ordinary users. It seems to work then, for me anyway.
Hope this helps.

 

[sonnysavage]

One of you guys should write a FAQ. I'm sure this issue will be encountered by other people. To me, it sounds like Rabbi's way is the best, security-wise.

 

[Rabbi]

I have just set up another 2k machine on a FAT 32 partition and it has no such problems with OOo

 

[ChrisHirst]

Info
with regards to Rabbi's last post if there are no problems on FAT32 the folder write permissions are the way to go. You get similar problems with other (non MS) writing config files back to the local drive.

I am going to be setting up OOo on Win2k TS later in the week if I find something I will post it up.

Chris.

 

[sonnysavage]

I just checked, and no-one has written a FAQ for this yet. Please give back to the community by writing a FAQ!

 

[Guest_imported]

I have this Problem too with TerminalServer and OpenOffice. I have changed the lokal-user rights on WTS-Server to Poweruser (ADS-User no change, only on local-server). It works perfectly. After this i have changed the rigts back to normal (domain user only, local no power rihts) and .. it won't works. After reading this discussion above, i try to change the local path of Programminstallation directory/user to &quot;chage&quot; for everybody and .. it works again. Finally i do follow steps to get it to work:

1.) Normal install local on wts.
2.) chang a userx to power user on local on wts.
3.) login as userx
4.) automatic start of repair.
5.) try Programm
6.) logout and change the userx back (remove from loacal poweruser group
7.) change c:\programs\openoffice\user dir to &quot;change&quot; rights for everybody (or just for userx)

It works for 10 Users, but it ist many work. (but for 30 Users a 250$ it saves many money)

I have also problems with local paths (my files on so) but i try this later.

Thist problems with WTS and Win2K are normal for 1-2 years ago, but for now, it is very rare. The install-routine and paths have to be change for an Multiuser/win envroiment. And then it will be works near perfectly. I have no time for an closer look at the files/sources in my job (sorry).

Final:

On WTS and Citrix ist works. The Setup-Rotine have bin to change.