How can I make available to all users a program that I installed in Windows XP or Windows 2000 to be accessed only by myself?

A. Some software installations will ask you whether the software you're installing should be accessible only by you or available to all users. If you initially configure the software to be accessible only to you, you can usually make it available to all users by taking several steps. First, look at the Start menu items. The Start menu items for each user are located in that user's profile menu (e.g.,C:documents and settingssavillstart menuprograms). The Start menu items for all users are located at C:documents and settingsall usersstart menuprograms. As a result, you can open Windows Explorer and drag the program's link folder from your Start Menu folder to the All UsersStart Menu folder. Be aware that although moving the folder to the All UsersStart Menu folder will let other users view the Start Menu item, they might not be able to actually start the program. You might be able to rectify this problem by adjusting the file Write permissions.

If the program needs to write files to the program's file system area, which typically resides at %systemdrive%program files, you might need to adjust the file Write permissions for all users so that they have access to this file system area. To configure file Write permissions, right-click the appropriate folder in Explorer, select "Sharing and Security" (or the equivalent for your OS), then change the permissions to grant Full Control access for the other users. Alternatively, go to the command line and type

cacls "%systemdrive%program files" /e /t /p :c

to set file Write permissions for a particular program. (To undo these permissions, run the command again but replace :c with :r).

If other users still can't access your program, open the registry, navigate to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWARE registry subkey, then use Edit, Permissions to grant full control to the other users. In most cases, just moving the program to the All Users Start Menu should be enough.