NetImage keeps prompting for registration info! - resolved

[Robert P]

I just purchased a copy of NeatImage5.0 home. However, I'm having a lot of trouble with the install.

Like all Windows software I install (XP-Pro machine), I do the install with my "Admin" account, and then run the software as a normal user. However, this doesn't seem to work with NeatImage. When I try that I keep getting prompted for my registration info EACH TIME I run NeatImage! And giving my normal account access to "C:\Program Files\Neat Image" doesn't seem to fix the problem.

Can you tell me where Neat Image stores the info that it's registered (a part of the registry perhaps?), so I can give my normal account access to that area (so Neat Image will remember that I'm a paid up user)?

[NITeam]

First of all, try to register Neat Image when running it in the admin account. Then it should not ask for the registration data again, when running under user account.

If this doesn't help, please send an e-mail to support and we will help you personally.

Thank you,
Vlad

[RobertP]

First of all, try to register Neat Image when running it in the admin account.

FYI: I had already tried that before sending my note. Neat Image will see the registration when I'm logged in as any "Admin" account (it doesn't have to be the Win-XP account I was using when I registered Neat Image, just a Windows account with Admin rights). However, Neat Image reverts to showing me the registration screen each time I use it from a normal account (no matter how many times I enter my registration info from a normal "less privileged" Windows-XP user account).

As a computer professional of many years, I've seen this sort of bug/issue with a few other programs, and it usually turned out to be a "permissions problem", where the program's author just assumed that all accounts would have permission to read/write a given area in Windows (when this is often not the case with less privileged Windows accounts). And in each case, finding which Windows permissions needed to be expanded (from their default), was the proper "fix". In this case, I'm guessing that a Windows "Admin account" has the ability to both read and write wherever Neat Image stores its "I'm registered" info (somewhere in the Windows registry, perhaps?), but my normal Windows accounts can't even read that area (so Neat Image reverts to thinking it is unregistered each time it is run from a normal account). If this is the problem, it should be trivial for me to give my normal ("less privileged") Win-XP accounts "read permissions" to the needed area (so that Neat Image can see that it is registered). However, to do that, I would need to know where that "I'm Registered" info is stored by Neat Image, so that I could change the permissions on that specific area of Windows (thereby allowing Neat Image to see that it is in fact already registered).

Per your instructions, I'll email support directly, for furtherer follow-up.