At 11:09 20/06/2005, Arnt Gulbrandsen wrote:
Paul Smith writes:
At 11:02 19/06/2005, Arnt Gulbrandsen wrote:
About 40-50% of the reviewed games require that. Now, isn't that ridiculous?
Yes - but that's not Windows fault, or Microsoft's fault... It's the
fault of the people who write the games software, and the users who
accept that state. Because 50-60% of the reviewed games DON'T require
administrator rights to play, it shows that it's not an OS problem, as
those 50-60% of game developers have been able to done the job right with
the same OS as those who haven't bothered.
Back when I wrote libraries for a living, if only 50-60% of my customers
were able to use the API without serious problems, I wouldn't say «oh, our
API is correct, half the API's users are in the wrong». I would look for
the the root cause in _our_ code or API. I'd talk to customers and ask
«what is it about the API that has led so many developers down the wrong
path?» (From experience, I can tell you that it's usually easy to find the
answer, but solving the problem without breaking compatibility can be tricky).
So, yes I think it's Microsoft's fault.
Most of the problems are often simply a case of requiring write permission
to the system directories, or needing write permission to certain parts of
the registry. It's not an API issue. It's like a Linux game needing to be
able to write to the /sbin directory - if a game did that you wouldn't say
that it was a problem with the Linux API, but many Windows games do require
write permission to the \Windows\System folder for some odd reason, or to
the system parts of the registry, or whatever. Microsoft tell people not to
do this, but they do it anyway - the only way Microsoft could improve
things is for all software to be 'approved' by Microsoft before it was
released... It's trivial to do it properly, but many independent developers
don't care - they write and test in admin mode themselves.
Paul VPOP3 - Internet Email Server/Gateway
support(_at_)pscs(_dot_)co(_dot_)uk http://www.pscs.co.uk/