Weird --enable-write18 failing to work

One of my users is trying to get pdflatex to process a document using 
[miktex]pdftricks, via WinEdt and MiKTeX 2.9 under Windows 7 SP1. I have 
tried all of the following for him:

1. EnableWrite18=t in pdflatex.ini

2. Adding -enable-write18 (both with single and double minus) to the
    WinEdt Options > Execution Modes > PDFLaTeX config

3. Manually running pdflatex --enable-write18 testpdftricks.tex
    (also tried with single and double minus, and with --shell-escape)

In all cases I am still getting the error message:

> Package pdftricks Warning: ****************************************
> (pdftricks)                No \write 18 capability.
> (pdftricks)                You'll have to run a script by yourself!
> (pdftricks)                ****************************************.

I copied pdftricks.sty to his working directory as a test, and edited it 
to include a \message where the /tmp/w18 temp file is tested for 
miktextrue, to see if that piece of code is being executed (it is).

C:\tmp exists and can be written to. He was processing in D:\ so I 
created D:\tmp as well, but in neither case was the test file being created.

I'm not a Windows person, so my understanding of what actually happens 
when a program performs a \write18 under Windows is limited.

The following minimal document testpdftricks.tex is the test document 
(it processes correctly on my Linux and Mac systems). Running pdflatex 
with --enable-write18 on the user's Windows system does result in the 
creation of the external figure file testpdftricks-fig1.tex but the 
shell escape to latex to generate the dvi/ps/pdf step does not happen.

Has anyone any idea why pdftricks is failing to create its internal test 
file, and thereby giving this error message?

His PC is a standard campus-issue desktop running the standard campus 
Windows 7 image. He installed MikTeX 2.9 and WinEdt and they are working 
fine in all other respects. I have raised the issue with the maintainers 
of the Win7 image to see if there is some hidden toggle that is turned 
off in Windows installation that might prevent shell escapes (no 
response yet).

///Peter
-- 
Peter Flynn | Academic & Collaborative Technologies | University College 
Cork IT Services | ☎ +353 21 490 2609 | ✉ [email protected] | 🌍 www.ucc.ie
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