SamLogic Software Blog

In Windows Vista, Windows 7 and Windows 8 the Program Files folder and the Program Files (x86) folder (and all subfolders beneath) are read-only folders for standard users (users that run programs with standard privileges). This means it is not possible for them to create files or update files in this location of the hard disk. The folders are write-protected. Why these folders are write-protected is explained in this technical article on our website.

We sometimes get the question: is it possible to circumvent the write protection and allow also standard users write access to a folder beneath Program Files and Program Files (x86)?

The answer is: Yes, it is possible. You can do it by changing the permission settings for the folder.

This should always be the last resort if you can not find another way. All folders placed in Program Files and Program Files (x86) should be write-protected for standard users, but sometimes this can give problems to older legacy software. In some computers a virtualization system called VirtualStore can solve the problem, but in many computers this is turned off. And then it is impossible to write data to a file. A file can be neither created nor updated.

You should note that it requires a user with administrator rights to change the permission settings for a folder in Program Files and Program Files (x86). A standard user can not change any permissions.

How do I change the permission settings for a folder?
This can be done in different ways. One method is just to right click on the folder in Windows Explorer, choose the Properties menu item, open the Security tab, select the Users item and change permissions for the user.

Although this is achievable, this is not a user-friendly solution for end-users. Especially not for users that are not so familiar with computers. A much better method is to change the permissions programmatically.

Let the installation program change the permission settings
As mentioned above, the permissions should be changed programmatically, and the best method is to let the installation program change the permission settings. When a software is installed to the Program Files / Program Files (x86) folder, the setup program is always run with administrator rights. This means that the installation program is allowed to change permission settings for a folder. If you try to change the permission settings later, for example when the installed software is running, it is very likely that the software do not have administrator rights. It will very likely only have standard user access rights, and it can therefore not change any permission settings for folders in Program Files / Program Files (x86).

How Visual Installer can handle this
In our setup tool Visual Installer there is a special script command that can be used to change permission settings for a folder. The name of the command is SETPERM, and below you can see an example of how to use the script command:

%DESTDIR\MyDataFolder is a path to a folder that will have its permissions changed and PERM_ALL tells Visual Installer to give a standard user full access rights to the folder (including write access). Instead of PERM_ALL you can also use PERM_WRITE as a second parameter. PERM_WRITE will give the standard user write access to the folder, but no other permission settings are changed.

%DESTDIR is variable that contains the main destination folder for the installation. If for example the main destination folder is C:\Program Files\SamLogic\My Application, the full path to the folder entered above will be C:\Program Files\SamLogic\My Application\MyDataFolder.

Related information
> How to install files in the correct folder using Visual Installer
> Visual Installer’s Scripting Language

It is very common to link a button in a menu created with CD-Menu Creator to a document file. One of the most used formats is DOC files (Microsoft Word documents).

In Windows XP and earlier a DOC file can be opened either with WordPad or Word. WordPad has the benefit to be loaded more quickly than Word, and it is always present in Windows. Microsoft Word is a large application, so in a slow computer it can take some time to load the application, so there may be a significant delay before the document is shown. Other disadvantage is that not all computers have Microsoft Word installed.

However, some Word documents require that they are opened with Microsoft Word. They can not be shown correctly with WordPad. That is the case if the Word document is complex and is advanced formatted. Then the only option is to open it with Microsoft Word.

In CD-Menu Creator you can select a setting that makes sure that the DOC file is always opened with Microsoft Word. The steps below show how to achieve this:

1. Start CD-Menu Creator and open the Buttons (text) tab.
2. Click on the Add Button button. The Add Button dialog box is opened.
3. Enter a button text at Text (button).
4. Select the Show Documents command at Command.
5. Press the “…” button and select a DOC file.
6. Select the Open document with Microsoft Word option.

7. Click OK to close the dialog box.
8. Create your menu.

When a user clicks on the button that you just added, the DOC file will always be opened with Microsoft Word. If you want the DOC file to be opened with WordPad in Windows XP or earlier, you can unselect the Open document with Microsoft Word option.

Notes
In Windows Vista or later, WordPad does not support DOC files anymore. So if your end-user for example uses Windows 7, the document will always be opened with Microsoft Word. If Microsoft Word is not installed, CD-Menu Creator will try to open the document with other software that can read Word documents. But if no such a software is installed in the computer, an information message is shown for the user. However, it is very rare that an end-user can not open Word documents. Almost all computers have some kind of software installed that can open Word documents.

In a previous blog post we showed how to add an ActiveX control to a Microsoft Visual Basic 2010 project. In this blog post we will show how to add an ActiveX control to a Microsoft Visual C++ 2010 project. We will also show how to create a variable that can be used to access properties and methods in the ActiveX control.

In this step-by-step tip we will use the Twitter control that is included in our SamLogic Social Media Components component library. This control can be used to send tweets to Twitter, and we will show how to add this control to a Visual C++ project. Although this tip will cover Microsoft Visual C++ 2010, the steps in other versions of Visual C++ are very similar.

How to add an ActiveX component to a Visual C++ 2010 project

1. Start Visual Studio 2010 and choose New project in the File menu.

2. Select the MFC Application option in the Visual C++ node in the New project dialog box.

3. In the MFC Application Wizard window that is shown, choose Dialog based in the Application Type step. We will create a dialog based Windows application.

4. In the Advanced Features step in the MFC Application Wizard, make sure that the ActiveX controls option is selected.

5. In the last step of the MFC Application Wizard, click on the Finish button.

We have now created a basic Visual C++ / MFC project that uses a dialog based window. Next will show how to add the Twitter ActiveX control to the project:

6. Right-click over the Toolbox window.

7. Select the Choose items menu item in the local menu that is shown.

8. The Choose Toolbox Items dialog box is now shown. In this dialog box, open the COM Components tab.

9. If you have installed the Twitter component and want to use it, select the SLTwitCtrl control in the list. Otherwise, select the ActiveX component that you want to use.

10. Click OK to close the dialog box.

11. The selected component should be visible in the Toolbox window; probably in the bottom of the window.

12. Now drag and drop the component on the dialog box.

We have now included an ActiveX component into a Visual C++ 2010 project and put it in a dialog box. We will now show how to create a variable that can be used to access properties and methods in the ActiveX control.

13. Right-click on the ActiveX control in the dialog box window.

14. Click on the Add Variable menu item in the local menu that is shown.

15. Enter a variable name in the dialog box that is shown, for example: SLTwitterCtrl.

15. Click Finish to close the dialog box and create the variable

16. We have now created a variable that can be used to access properties and methods in the ActiveX control. The example below shows how to access the AppName property in SamLogic’s Twitter Control (it sets the ActiveX property to “Twitter Test Application”):

Related Blog Posts
> How to add an ActiveX component to a Visual Basic 2010 project
> How to add an ActiveX component to an Excel 2010 sheet

As you may already know, and as we described in an article on our website, Microsoft removed the Start button in Windows 8. This raised much criticism among Windows users and Microsoft have partly listened to them and re-introduced the Start button in the upcoming Windows 8.1 that will be released later this year. However, there is no traditional Start menu as in earlier versions of Windows. Instead, the Start screen is shown if you click on the Start button (see image to the right). The new Start button is placed at the bottom left of the screen, just like in older Windows versions.

Windows 8.1 – Right-click menu
It is also possible to right-click on the Start button and display a shortcut menu for Control Panel and Windows Explorer among other options. You can also turn off or restart Windows from this menu (see image to the right).

Displays traditional desktop at start
Another new feature in Windows 8.1 is that the computer can be started with the traditional desktop right away instead of clicking around with your mouse or using the keyboard to bring up the traditional desktop as you had to do in the previous version of Windows 8. This is welcome news for many, especially for companies that are still using traditional Windows programs (Windows desktop applications).

Other news
Some other news in Windows 8.1 are:
– Improved support for SkyDrive
– Internet Explorer 11 included
– Improved support for security
– Extended support for VPN
– Improved and more flexible Home screen
– Support for 3D printers

The following YouTube video from Microsoft presents news on Windows 8.1:

More information
More information about the new features in Windows 8.1 can be found on these pages:
> Microsoft: What’s New in Windows 8.1
> Guardian: Windows 8.1 review: Microsoft’s fresh Start?

Download Windows 8.1 Preview
Right now it is possible to download a preview version of Windows 8.1:
> Download English version of Windows 8.1
> Download Swedish version of Windows 8.1

Related information about Windows 8
> Article: New Keyboard Shortcuts (Hot Keys) in Windows 8
> Article: Why Were the Start Button & Start Menu Removed in Windows 8?

Applications (programs) are usually installed to the Program Files folder in Windows. The exact folder path may differ between different versions of Windows. The folder path is for example different between a 32 bit and 64 bit Windows, and for example a Spanish Windows uses a different folder path than an English Windows.

This will make it difficult to hard code the folder path to the Program Files folder. If you use Visual Installer for your setup projects you can use an environment variable to handle the Program Files folder. The name of the variable is %PROGRAMFILES and the variable will be replaced with the current folder path to the Program Files folder during the installation. By using this variable you don’t need to worry about the bitness of the Windows or which country / language version of Windows that is run.

More information
We have published more information about the %PROGRAMFILES variable in the following two Visual Installer related blog posts:

> How to install files in the correct folder using Visual Installer
> How Visual Installer handles 64 bit folders in Windows