CompTIA A+® Certification All-In-One For Dummies®, 2nd Edition

2.7. Application Install, Start, and Load Errors

Many Windows XP or Windows Vista application errors are related to permissions to the file system when using NTFS and the Registry. Starting with Windows XP, the default permissions restrict changes to files, addition of files to specific directories, and changes to portions of the Registry. In addition to these restrictions, many applications that attempt to directly access hardware will fail. If the application is a modern 32-bit or 64-bit Windows application that is supposed to work with Windows XP or Windows Vista, most installation errors can be traced to not meeting either the minimum installation requirements or permissions.

Microsoft has made these permissions changes to prevent most users from being able to install their own applications and make unauthorized changes to the OS. One way to see whether the problem is with a user installing or launching an application is to temporarily add the user to the local Administrators group and see whether the problem is resolved. If that resolves the issue, you know that the problem is related to permissions to one of these locations.

If you can't get permissions information from the application vendor or can't grant the user elevated group membership, the Microsoft's Sysinternals (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/default.aspx) has utilities (such as RegMon and FileMon) that can help you identify the permissions changes required.