My game needs save files. These save files ideally will live within the same folder as my exe. This exe ideally lives within the C:\Program Files\MyGame folder. Windows 7/Vista doesn't like letting my program create, modify, or delete files within Program Files unless I make it so the user has to run as an Admin. I would rather not have the user run as Admin, as some users are not allowed to do so on some computers.
How do we get around this problem?
You should save your files in a sub-directory of the user's Documents or AppData folders.
...what Yves said.
Basically, Program Files is a protected folder, and a correctly designed Windows application should not write there (unless it's an installer or updater). So, there's no problem really, this limitation makes Windows much more secure (e.g. malware can't change or infect the system or the installed software without first asking for admin rights) and forces programmers to save files at the right place.
You can use the File object to retrieve the path to the user account's application data folder. Create a folder inside that, named after your game, and store the data there.
Gotcha, okay that makes sense. So how do I use the File Object to find the AppData folder? I'm away from my normal computer at the moment, otherwise I'd open up mmf2 and figure it out myself...
I suggest using My Documents instead. Windows XP doesn't have an AppData folder, so using it would mean your application won't save games properly on XP.
Windows has had an application data folder since at least Windows 95, I think.
Yeah, on early versions of windows it maps directly to the user folder, on XP it is %User%/Local Settings/Application Data/ and on 7 it is %User%/AppData/Local/
I had the same problem, what worked for me was setting the file to share with everyone. that way there were no restrictions. if you have tried this, try selecting the share with no one option. i know it sounds goofy, but once i did that it shared it with everyone and i could save wherever lol.Originally Posted by Bipolar_Games
Actually, that's not the way to do it properly. Follow the set Windows standards or create portable software without installers (or like in my case, offer both). Why bother trying to circumvent UAC with hacky solutions when the correct rules are so easy to follow?
Um....i tried the latter from the start, and i had no luck. the way i did it worked like a charm for me, but maybe that is only in my case, may not work for others.......
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