Re: error if texmf.fndb and mpm.fndb are not writable, even if no write is occuring

 > I think you should give more informations
 > regarding the accounts and > the installation.

Here's what I did in detail:

1) create restricted user account "user1" and log in to that account. 
(restricted = non-administrator)

2) download MiKTeX Portable 2.9.4757 to desktop
-- we're using the portable package because we want to create a portable 
folder containing MikTeXwhich we can then give to our customers and 
which they can then use in a restricted account

3) create a folder miktex and move installer into it

4) open folder miktex and double click extractor.
-- extract to C:\Documents and Settings\user1\Desktop\miktex
--twoofthefilestheextractorinstallsare

C:\Documents and Settings\user1\Desktop\miktex\data\le\mpm.fndb
C:\Documents and Settings\user1\Desktop\miktex\data\le\texmf.fndb

I have done nothing special here; this was done automatically. Right 
clicking on these file and selecting "Security" we see that these files 
have Write permission for "user1". (In fact, all the files in all the 
folders under C:\Documents and Settings\user1\Desktop\miktex have Write 
permission allowed for user1.)

-- create and place a shortcut to miktex-portable on desktop

5) double click miktex-portable

6) right click MikTeX icon in taskbar and select "Command prompt"

7) in the command window
-- cd to directory containing example

C:\Documents and Settings\user1\Desktop\miktex>cd 
..\ReportExample\ReportExample\

-- run pdflatex.

C:\Documents and 
Settings\user1\Desktop\ReportExample\ReportExample>pdflatex SimplePipe.tex

-- click Install button for all packages
-- this completes successfully

8) run pdflatex again.
--There'snopromptingforpackagesbecausetheyareallinstalled.--observethatthefilesmpm.fndbandtexmf.fndbarenotchangedbythesecondpdflatex 


9) Now right click texmf.fndb and mpm.fndb again and click "Deny" on 
Write access for user1.

Recall this is what our customer is requiring for an installation in 
Program Files. Here I'm just seeing
if it's possible to do this. It should be, because we observed that 
texmf.fndb and mpm.fndb are
not modified if all the needed packages are already downloaded.

10) run pdflatex again. This time we get an error:

C:\Documents and 
Settings\user1\Desktop\ReportExample\ReportExample>pdflatex SimplePipe.tex
This is pdfTeX, Version 3.1415926-2.4-1.40.13 (MiKTeX 2.9)
pdflatex: Windows API error 5: Access is denied.
pdflatex: Data: C:\Documents and 
Settings\user1\Desktop\miktex\miktex/data/le\texmf.fndb

-- if we run pdflatex with "-disable-installer", we get the same error


On 04/23/2013 06:25 AM, Ulrike Fischer wrote:
> Am Mon, 22 Apr 2013 17:47:44 -0700 schrieb Rick Pember:
>
>> I need to be able install MiKTeX on a customer's Windows XP box in their
>> Program Files folder. They have a requirement that no files in this
>> folder can be modified by users and, more generally, that no files in
>> Program Files can be writeable.
>>
>> To prototype this, on my own Windows XP box, I ran MikTeX (pdflatex) on
>> a tex file that causes all the packages they need to be downloaded. I
>> verified that when I run pdflatex a second time, the files texmf.fndb
>> and mpm.fndb do not change. I then turned off the write permission on
>> these files and ran pdflatex again. I then got the error
>>
>> pdflatex: Windows API error 5: Access is denied
>>
>> If I ran
>>
>> pdflatex -disable-installer
>>
>> I got the same error.
>>
>> It seems that in this situation it should not be necessary for
>> texmf.fndb or mpm.fndb to be writeable, especially because I can verify
>> that the contents and time stamps of these files are not changing.
>>
>> Am I doing something wrong or is this a bug?
> I think you should give more informations regarding the accounts and
> the installation.
> E.g. do you have two accounts on your win xp? One admin and one
> normal? Did you installed miktex as multi user installation?
> For which account did you remove the write permissiones?
>


-- 
Richard Pember, Ph.D.
Director of CFD Development
Altair Engineering, Inc.
2685 Marine Way, Suite 1421
Mountain View, CA 94043
(650) 988-9700 x715 (Office)
(650) 988-9770 (Fax)
[email protected]
http://www.altair.com


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