XP Home Issues

There are features within the XP Home edition that could cause PCMonitor not to work properly.

1.   When one user logs off and another user logs on, the monitoring agent stops capturing information.

An XP Home feature, called “Fast Switching”, causes the problem.  Fast switching was developed to speed up the process of one person logging off the computer and another one logging onto the computer. 

In order for PCMonitor to capture the various users who use the system, we must disable this feature.  Fast switching can be turned off by using the administrator account of your system and by opening the option of "User Accounts" in the control panel.  Once you open the "User Accounts" screens, click on "Change the way users log on or off".  Clear the check box that says "Use Fast User Switching” and it will be disabled.

2.   Some user’s information is captured but not all users are captured.

This has to do with the permission rights that XP gives to users that are called “Limited Users” and how we try to hide the program files for PCMonitor.  To resolve this problem we need to change the permission rights on a folder called C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\sbs\.

How To:

• Use My Computer to find the folder C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Documents\sbs\.  If you do not see the folder “sbs” under the “msapps” folder then we need to change your folder settings so you see “Hidden files and folders”.  Do worry, this will not change the setting for the other users, only yours.
   

• To change your folder options, click on the “Tools” menu in the file explorer and select “Folder Options”.  Once that screen opens, click on the “View” tab.  Look for and click on the option for “Show Hidden Files and Folders” as shown in the first Folder Options screen below.  This settings can be reset to the original settings after you modify the permission setting below.
  
  

• Once you find the “sbs” folder, you need to right click on your mouse (the other button that you usually use).  This will present a pop up menu and at the bottom is a selection for “Properties”.  Click on “Properties” to change the permissions.
   

• A screen with tabs at the top will appear.  Click on the tab called “Sharing”.  The sharing tab will allow you to change the permissions for the "sbs" folder.

• Click on the check boxes called "Share this folder on the network" and "Allow network users to change my files".  This will allow other users to update the database.