Me3 And Windows Xp Pro

[ghopkins]

Hi all,

 

Happy New Year!

 

I'm writing because I recently switched to a new 3.6Ghz(HT) machine running XP Pro.

 

I have two sons and a wife sharing this system and I have an ID set up for each user. My ID has admin permission.

 

What are some of the cool or helpful you are using ME3 for in this environment?

 

I would love to hear how you are using ME3 with XP in a multi-user scenario.

 

In advance, thanks for helpiing and for sharing your ideas.

 

 

All the best,

Greg

[kevin]

Hi Greg,

 

One thing you can do is customize macros for each login. Use the 'Variable Get from Misc' command and choose 'User Name'. I have a macro that does an online lookup of school grades. Each person who logs in can quickly see their own grades and Mom or Dad get a menu to choose which one to view. Another similar macro uses our library's online system to find out what books are checked out, when they are due, and any fines owing.

 

These are simple but useful things.

[ghopkins]

Thank you very much.

 

Did you mean "variable set from misc"? I tried that and printed the results to

a text box, which showed my XP login ID.

 

I guess I need to better understand how Windows XP behaves and what can be done from a user with admin permissions.

 

Thank you again for your help.

[kevin]

Yes, I should have said 'Variable Set from Misc'.

 

Macro Express does not have a direct way to determine if the logged on user has administrative rights. However, knowing which user logon names have administrativer rights you can do something like this:

Set Variable %T1% to "Username"
If Variable %T1% = "Aministrator"
 OR
If Variable %T1% = "Greg"
 //  <Do your Admin stuff here>
Else
 //  <Do your non-admin stuff here>
End If

You have your macro determine if the currently logged on user has administrative rights by attempting to write to a 'protected' area of the registry. If the write is successful, then the user does have admin rights. For example, you may try to write to:

 

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Insight Software Solutions\Macro Express\TestValue

[fredk]

<<You have your macro determine if the currently logged on user has administrative rights by attempting to write to a 'protected' area of the registry. If the write is successful, then the user does have admin rights. For example, you may try to write to:

 

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Insight Software Solutions\Macro Express\TestValue

 

>>

 

Hope you don't mind my dropping into this thread but I've seen the REGISTRY options in MacroExpress and now you really have my curiousity piqued. I've dabbled in the Registry, creating new keys on someone's suggestion and deleting ones that I have found for one reason or another were not removed when software should have cleaned up after itself so I'm not totally afraid of THE REGISTRY (portentious music in background).

 

But for purposes of ME, could I just create some key down there (oh, I have looked at the help items) in the registry to just hold data that I might not want lurking in a file? Yes, I know they would not be coded but it would still be a place that folks might not look for a password or userid or such.

 

Thanks.

[kevin]

Yes, it is common to use the registry instead of a file to hold information. Many of the macros I write do this and, I understand that the PGM Functions Library from Professional Grade Macros uses the registry extensively.

 

Several of my macros look for a value in the registry. If it isn't there we know the macro has not been used previously and the macro asks for specific information like the user name and preferences.