LE 7.4 | Admin User Permission Issue - workaround?
 

Very long time no see DUC!

After getting on for nearly 10 years I have begun to fire up my LE 7.4 setup again. The reason - a friend of mine getting into voice over work. My goodness have the shortcuts been forgotten!



The issue:
I want to be able to let them use my laptop when I'm not around. Previously I never had to be concerned with Windows drive permissions for the different users on my laptop; all user profiles were used by me. Therefore I've never thought twice about the fact Pro Tools required admin rights.

So after setting up a 'Voiceover' standard user profile, and restricting access to just one folder on my 'E' drive, I was surprised to encounter the admin password window pop up upon firing up Pro Tools. Now, doing this didn't allow access to restricted folders through explorer; but when choosing where to save a new session in PT it does allow all restricted folders to be browsed. Whilst the files in those don't appear due to obvious incompatibility, all folder pathways and thumbnails are. Is there anything I can do to avoid this?


The setup:

• Vista Home Premium SP1 laptop | CPU 2x2.16 | 3gb RAM
• LE 7.4 | Mbox 2
• One 250gb drive partitioned into a C and E drive. PT in C, Audio in E
• And what was a rather powerful XP desktop specifically for PT that long ago stopped booting at "verifying DMI pool data", and so was left dormant - leaving the laptop to pick up the pieces!

(I was thinking of getting a new external drive just for the v/o sessions, likely necessary due to space anyway, but I'd still have to deal with the admin issue wouldn't I. [Windows wise is it possible to restrict certain admin users to only certain drives, or is admin just all encompassing?])



Thanks for your time reading and replying. Any thoughts are appreciated. Also, if this should be somewhere else do let me know. Cheers! :-)

Re: LE 7.4 | Admin User Permission Issue - workaround?
 

I have more questions than answers, but it still might help:
#1-With a setup this old, I would just set it as a system to do VO work and nothing else(no dual-boot. No separate logins, just keep it simple)
#2-you partitioned a small drive into 2 even smaller drives....if this was done for performance, it almost certainly made it worse. If the single drive is an SSD, then its likely fine(but you will run out of space really fast). If its a spinning drive, then you are asking the drive head to jump around twice as much as its trying to do 2 jobs(system AND audio). A separate physical drive works much better when they are spinners.

If this is a temporary thing to help a friend(which makes you a rather GOOD friend:D), I would save a drive image of what you have now and then reset the computer for your friend so he can get started. Once he/she "graduates" to their own setup, then you can recover from the drive image, which would put your laptop right back to where it is now(like you never lent it out):o OR***(this is a better idea), buy a 500GB or 1TB SSD, Clone the old drive to the SSD and install that in the laptop(or maybe get your friend to buy the drive).:D

Re: LE 7.4 | Admin User Permission Issue - workaround?
 

How is he getting 7.4 to work on Vista? Ah, he must have cs10. And obviously using a Digidesign interface.

Yes, separate hard drive for sessions, 7,200 RPM and 64 mb cache - Western Digital Caviar Blacks were/are the favorites.

I hope the V/O recorded is short. I don't know if I could handle Real-Time Bounce anymore. Or no Clip Gain either.

That said, if it's only audio as recorded with no volume automation or processing, then just Consolidate, name the Region (I remembered it's not Clips back in 7.4) and Export.

And yes, just clone or image the drive, then install Vista and Pro Tools afresh and away your friend goes.