Moving Programs to the User Account

When my child got his laptop, I just set up an account for him which made him
the administrator. Now I realize I should be the administrator, so I can use
the parental controls. I changed his account to mine and made him a new user
account. Now all of the games he downloaded are under my administrator
account and are not showing up under his user account. Is there any easy way
to move them to his account without him having to download everything again?
Thanks!

Hi,

Unless they are aware of the multiuser scheme Vista employs, no. You would
need to reinstall them under his account. You might first try simply moving
the shortcuts to the C:\Users\Public\Desktop folder to see if they will run
without further issue.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/
Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

"philandlaura" <> wrote in message
news:1E079B85-5FA7-41B5-B61A-...
> When my child got his laptop, I just set up an account for him which made
> him
> the administrator. Now I realize I should be the administrator, so I can
> use
> the parental controls. I changed his account to mine and made him a new
> user
> account. Now all of the games he downloaded are under my administrator
> account and are not showing up under his user account. Is there any easy
> way
> to move them to his account without him having to download everything
> again?
> Thanks!

In retrospect you should have just changed the type of account for yoru son
and left the name the same. You might try switching back the account names
and changing his account type in the process.

"philandlaura" <> wrote in message
news:1E079B85-5FA7-41B5-B61A-...
> When my child got his laptop, I just set up an account for him which made
> him
> the administrator. Now I realize I should be the administrator, so I can
> use
> the parental controls. I changed his account to mine and made him a new
> user
> account. Now all of the games he downloaded are under my administrator
> account and are not showing up under his user account. Is there any easy
> way
> to move them to his account without him having to download everything
> again?
> Thanks!

"Rick Rogers" <> wrote in message
news:...
> Hi,
>
> Unless they are aware of the multiuser scheme Vista employs, no. You would
> need to reinstall them under his account. You might first try simply
> moving the shortcuts to the C:\Users\Public\Desktop folder to see if they
> will run without further issue.


I really doubt that they would have to be reinstalled once the shortcuts are
copied over. Any files within AppData and any registry keys needed in the
user account's HKCU hive should get created on first run. I think it's rare
for AppData files to be made before first run.

The only other problem I can envisage is some really badly done installer,
which did not give normal user accounts rights to the program's registry
keys in HKLM. I have only seen this happen three times (big applications,
not games).

ss.

> I really doubt that they would have to be reinstalled once the shortcuts
> are copied over. Any files within AppData and any registry keys needed in
> the user account's HKCU hive should get created on first run. I think
> it's rare for AppData files to be made before first run.

That's what I'm hoping for. The problem will be if a needed supporting file
or registry entries are not there and cannot be copied over or does not
exist in the program folder, ie: something that the installer places
directly in the user appdata. The one under the other account won't be
accessible.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/
Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com

"Synapse Syndrome" <> wrote in message
news:...
> "Rick Rogers" <> wrote in message
> news:...
>> Hi,
>>
>> Unless they are aware of the multiuser scheme Vista employs, no. You
>> would need to reinstall them under his account. You might first try
>> simply moving the shortcuts to the C:\Users\Public\Desktop folder to see
>> if they will run without further issue.
>
>

>
> The only other problem I can envisage is some really badly done installer,
> which did not give normal user accounts rights to the program's registry
> keys in HKLM. I have only seen this happen three times (big applications,
> not games).
>
> ss.
>