After a hard drive crash the computer was upgraded from Windows 2000 to Windows XP. I reinstalled Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 under the Administrator account, but when my son tries to play the game as a regular user it will not start. I have given his user full rights over the ‘Activision’ folder and sub-folders on the hard drive, and for the CD drive. He can play the game fine using profile account so I assume it has something to do with the security settings in Windows XP. Do you have any ideas other than giving him administrator rights?

Under some regular user accounts access to Windows functions such as the Windows registry may be limited. Thus, if the game has never been run under the regular user, the registry keys cannot be found (as the game has not been run under that user before) nor can they be created (due to the limited access privileges of the account). To get around this, try temporarily giving your son’s account administrator rights, just so you can run the game once and create any necessary registry keys, etc’¦ To do this, logon to the computer as the Administrator and go to the ‘Start’ menu > ‘Control Panel’ and open ‘User Accounts’. Click ‘Change an Account’ and click your son’s account then change the account type to an administrator. Log-off and logon as your son. Then, run the game. Finally, log back on as Administrator and reset your son’s account as a Limited account and see if the game will now run under that account.

If the problem continues, there could be more issues with the Limited account not being able to access the Windows registry. Since you have granted permission for your son’s account to access the Activision directory, we can assume all of this is ok. However, the game may require read/write access to the registry entry in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE portion of the Windows registry. Usually, all users have read access to this area, but only administrators have write access. You may need to grant your son’s account read/write (i.e., full control) access. Be very careful when attempting this procedure, as it is quite easy to make a mistake causing significant consequences for Windows (e.g. an unusable system) - you have been warned! After logging on as the Administrator, go to the ‘Start’ menu > ‘Run’ and type ‘regedit’ (without the quotes) and click OK. Go into the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWARE key and try to locate the ‘Activision’ key. Once found, click to highlight the key. Then, go to the ‘Edit’ menu > ‘Permissions’¦’. Allow your son’s account ‘Full Control’ over this key. Click OK.

There is also an outside possibility that the game installed files to a different location than the main program directory and access to those files is necessary for game play. Unless you are able to track down these files, it may easier just to give your son’s account administrator access to the computer.