Do you support standard users on Windows XP?

Question

Update: Since development machine has moved to Vista, i now automatically test as a standard user. And with XP being phased out, this question isn't so relavent anymore.

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Since the Windows 2000 logo requirements, Microsoft has been requiring that applications run as standard user. Like everyone else i always ran my desktop as an administrative user. And like every developer: i log in, develop, run, and test as an administrative user.

Now with a new push to finally support standard users, i've been testing my applications by running them as a normal user - either through RunAs, or having my application relaunch itself with normal rights using [SaferCreateLevel][1]/[SaferComputeTokenFromLevel][2] if it detects it is running as an administrator. i quickly see how specacularly some of my apps fail under Windows XP as a standard user (due to my own stupidity). i also see how the same applications work fine under Vista (thanks to it's numerous shims to fix my bugs for me).

Aside: It's ironic that applications are more likely to run on Vista as a standard user than on XP.

The question is do you test your applications for standard user compatiblity? Do you develop as a standard user on XP? Do you ignore standard user access and hope for the best?

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i tried, as a bonus, to have my app relaunch itself as a limited user (rather than normal user). It doesn't even come up - Windows says it failed to initialize. So there an area of future research on my part: making the app even support limited user.

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i specifically referred to standard users on XP rather than Vista to enforce the truth that Vista is no different from XP as far as compatibility is concerned. And anyone who says their app fails on Vista must realize it also fails on XP.

Answer 1

Yes, we test that.

Probably the simplest, but most abused, rule is that you shouldn't do anything that requires write access to your program's install folder. Instead, there's a special folder called Application Data for that kind of thing.

Answer 2

In the business environment most users are standard windows domain users. To ignore standard user compliance tests is a really bad move. And you will get each domain administrator that has to install your application very angry and they will go to your competition.

Answer 3

Yes, and I took the general advice that its much easier to get your application to run on Vista if it runs ok on XP as limited user. To achieve that, and know if there were any problems running as limited user, I used LUABuglight.

I generally don't develop as limited user but only log on as limited user for testing.

The number of programs that require Admin rights and write to their own Program Files folder is amazing. To be honest, I've found very few programs that run correctly as limited user, from any software company, big or small.

Answer 4

If you want to sell your application to businesses then yes, you must test your application running as a standard user. If your application can't run without administrative privelleges, that's going to doom any sale in to a business.

Even in the home market, plenty of people can and do use limited users to go about their daily activities; I know I do.

Even administrative applications that do legimately need administrative privelleges should behave sensibly when running as a limited user. They should popup up a dialog informing the user that administrative rights are required to complete whatever task it was that they were attempting.

The best way to build software that respects these limitations is to develop your software under a user that has limited privileges. That way, every time you develop a feature you're implicitly testing whether it will work in a limited environment.

None of this is hard, it just take a degree of discipline - just like all quality assurance procedures do. People have been developing as non-root users on *nix for decades. Windows development is behind the curve in this respect.

Answer 5

I run on XP as a limited user almost all of the time and as the default. (On Vista, I use an adminstrative account and rely on UAC.)

I develop as a limited user. There's very little in Java and Visual Studio development that requires any more privilege than that.

If I need to run something under the limited account but with administrative privileges, I use a MakeMeAdmin (renamed and tuned as ConsoleMeAdmin) .bat script that creates an administrative console session.

If I really need to be an administrator in order to do installs and do first-time-runs so my security software can condition itself to allow network access to the new code (or not), etc., I will elevate my Limited User Account to Administrator long enough to get all of that done, then restart the account as Limited User again. Other than for Windows Updates, I do all of my downloads as a limited user and then install off-line after elevation to Administrator.

Because I only have a small workgroup LAN with no Active Directory, the only useful account types are Administrator and Limited User on XP. (I tried power user when I first began using XP but found that I could do without it and I prefer what that teaches me about not depending on special privileges in code I build.)

[PS: I also have Data Execution Protection (supported in hardware) active by default on my XP system, and you'd be surprised what that turns up.]

Answer 6

I'm going to point you to Crispin Cowan's "Best Practices for Developing for Windows Standard User" talk. It's well worth watching.

Answer 7

Anyone else find it funny that Windows developers think its normal to run as Admin (apparently), but Linux developers pretty much never run as root?

Answer 8

IMHO developing in an administrator account is not only unnecessary, but also highly dangerous! Suppose you check something on the internet while developing (stackoverflow comes to mind) and you catch some malware - history shows that this is far easier than you might have thought, e.g. through banners. As an administrator this malware will infect your computer and you might never get rid of it. It can even be a danger to all your development work (think of industrial espionage)!

If you have to run/test anything as an administrator, use either runas or even better virtual machines - that way you can use separate systems with defined behaviour (lots of problems with Windows software come from libraries that are of course available on the developer's PC, but hardly anywhere else!). In times of Microsoft Virtual PC and VMWare Server (both free) there isn't even an excuse due to high prices for virtualization software.

I've developed some Windows apps some years ago and besides their installers NOTHING ever required administrative rights. The run-time settings always belong to the user, not to the machine.

And yes, I run Windows XP as normal user at home too, as do my family members (parents etc.). Sometimes a crappy piece of software needs write access to their installation folder, but 95% of all installed apps run fine out-of-the-box by today.

Answer 9

As an old-time BOFH I will rain fire and ugly words over anyone asking for elevated rights for their client-side applications to run properly. It's just out of the question, always was ever since around 2001-2002 when we switched from Win9x to XP (sic).

As a newly born developer in a place where everyone on XP is a local admin by a forced group policy and changing it seems to take time and noone is especially inclined to start either - I've installed the RunAsAdmin shim that lowers me down to a normal user for most tasks including developing - much like in Vista. Recommended if you're stuck as a local admin on XP ^^