More on w.bloggar...

Duncan Mackenzie commented on my blog about w.bloggar and admin permissions:
I realize the correct solution is to fix w.bloggar, but could you just uninstall/reinstall and put it into a folder where writing was allowed (your My Documents folder, or :\w.bloggar if multiple users required access...)?

Sure, both of those solutions would probably work...but only if you know enough to know why the software's failing in the first place. If you don't know that going in, how are you going to know to install to a different directory? And like the suggestions made by Drew, these are workarounds, not true solutions. As such, they really don't address the larger issue of getting developers to test their software and make it run without elevated privileges, and without having to resort to workarounds or hacks.

Bottom line is that software should not, as a general rule, require admin privileges, or loosening of permissions on install directories, to run properly. If software requires elevated privileges, it should ideally provide a means for the user to temporarily provide those elevated privileges for the smallest amount of time and scope necessary, and then the application should be returned to the lowest possible privilege level. So I thank Duncan for the additional workaround ideas, but I don't want more workarounds. I want software that operates properly without them.

[Listening to: Key to the Highway - BB King, Eric Clapton - Riding with the King (03:40)]

2 Comments

  • Any ideas on this? Its not admin privs...I am logged in as admin. The directory has full privs


  • Sam,





    Could be that there is another URL that needs to be added to the Trusted Sites zone, but if you've already turned off Enhanced Security Configuration in IE, that may not be it after all. ScottW could probably tell you more about how w.bloggar interacts with dotnetweblogs.com, so you could at least try adding all the relevant URLs to the Trusted Sites zone. It might also be helpful to run a tool like SysInternals' (www.sysinternals.com) TCPView to get an idea of which ports and addresses are being used, and whether or not something's being blocked by Win2K3. If you run w.bloggar on both XP and Win2K3 while running TCPMon, you may be able to suss out if there's a difference in the communication.

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