Executive Summary This paper describes a simple way to mitigate some types of application compatibility problems with legacy applications installed on 64-bit editions of Windows Vista and newer, including Windows 7 and Windows 8. The technique relies on creating an NTFS junction or symbolic link,...

Announcing the release of LUA Buglight 2.2, including support for Windows 8. LUA Buglight is an interactive utility that identifies admin-permissions issues (" LUA bugs ") in desktop applications. Version 2.2 (attached to this blog post) adds support for Windows 8 and continues support for Windows XP...

LUA Buglight 2.1.1 is was attached to this blog post and replaces v2.1. It adds support for Windows 7 SP1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1. It also fixes a localization bug. Now that I've (pretty much) finished work on the Windows Sysinternals Administrators Reference , maybe I can find time to write...

I wish I had the time to write up proper documentation for LUA Buglight , the utility I wrote that identifies admin-rights issues in desktop applications. LUA Buglight is one of many "spare time" projects I work on, and for the past year and a half or so, it, like pretty much all my other "spare time...

LUA Buglight 2.1, identifies admin-permissions issues ("LUA bugs") in desktop applications. New version supports Windows 7 (x86 and x64), Vista (x86 and x64), XP (x86 only) and corresponding Server OSes. The download and more information is on this page: http://blogs.msdn.com/aaron_margosis/pages...

LUA Buglight 2.1 is here. LUA Buglight identifies admin-permissions issues ("LUA bugs") in desktop applications. I've made a lot of changes to LUA Buglight since the last "2.0 Preview" that I posted, so the version number has been bumped up: Support for Windows 7, Vista and XP, and corresponding...

I do a lot of presentations on how to identify and fix "LUA bugs" in applications (*), both for Windows XP and Windows Vista. I frequently use a little VB6 application to demonstrate writing to various portions of the file system and registry, write to .ini files in protected locations, restart services...

LUA Buglight is a utility that helps identify "LUA bugs" in applications -- application features that that fail as standard user but that work as administrator. I work on it in my spare time, so progress has been slow. Attached to this blog post is the second preview version of LUA Buglight 2.0. Main...

Attached to this blog post is a PREVIEW VERSION of LUA Buglight 2.0. LUA Buglight is a utility that helps identify "LUA bugs" in desktop applications -- the bugs that appear when the application is run as a standard user instead of as an administrator. Some of the improvements in LUA Buglight 2.0...

I've meant to provide more info and follow-up regarding LUA Buglight , the tool I wrote to help identify "LUA bugs". "LUA bugs" are the issues that cause a program to work only when run as admin (elevated). Here are some quick notes... 1. Internationalization: there is an issue when LUA Buglight...

I'll be presenting an MSDN webcast and demoing LUA Buglight next Tuesday, October 17, 2006, 11:00am US Pacific time. Click here for more information and to register. Make sure to install the Microsoft LiveMeeting client prior to showtime. [Update, 18 Oct 2006] The webcast is now available for on...

LUA Buglight ™ is a tool I've been working on that is designed to help both developers and IT Pros (sysadmins) identify the specific causes of "LUA bugs" in desktop applications running on Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, or Windows Vista. Once the specific causes have been identified, the bugs...

My ramblings have now been published in a more reputable venue than blogs.msdn.com. Pick up the August 2006 issue of TechNet Magazine, or see it here on the web: Problems of Privilege: Find and Fix LUA Bugs BTW, in the US you can subscribe to TechNet Magazine for free: http://www.microsoft.com...

This post is the fourth installment in the "Fixing LUA Bugs" series. Before reading this, you should read: What is a "LUA Bug"? (And what isn't a LUA Bug?) Fixing "LUA bugs", Part I Fixing "LUA bugs", Part II A fairly common LUA bug scenario is the application that creates and...

Fixing "LUA bugs", Part II If ( and only if ) items #1 through #3 (a, b and c) from Fixing LUA bugs, Part I don’t allow your apps to work as normal user, then – and only then – move on to items #4 and #5, which are described in this article, along with their respective benefits and drawbacks. ...

You have an application that you – or your users – need to run. It’s a normal app – it isn’t designed to perform system administration of your computer, but for some reason, it doesn’t work correctly unless it’s run from an account that has administrator-level access (see “ What is a "LUA Bug"? (And...

First, what is "LUA"? "LUA" is an acronym that variously refers to "Limited User Account", "Least-privileged User Account", "Least User Access", and probably several other clumsy phrases that ultimately indicate a computer user account that cannot make changes that affect other users of the system...