PsExec save my day

Today i just finished installing Windows XP SP2 (and any other software) for my family computer which is mostly used for gaming (The Sims 2 with it’s expansion pack), transferring various files from her flash disk by my sister. I think it’s best for me to assign her username as limited user account to prevent or reducing damage from virus / spyware infection which is often found from her usb flashdisk after being used somewhere else

And as you can see, my sister love the sims 2 series very much. But inserting the sims 2 cd everytime she want to play of course quite disturbing, and no-cd crack for the sims 2 often cause more trouble (dunno about that now, but back then i tried using the no-cd crack for the sims 1 and i did not hear any background sound because of it)

So the only solution of course is by using The Sims 2 ISO Images created using Alcohol or other similar program, and then use YASU / SD4Hide / other similar apps to bypass the SafeDisc protection used on the Sims 2 so she can play the sims 2 without the need to insert the sims 2 CD everytime she want to play it

Just in case you didn’t know, YASU / other safedisc bypasser tools require you to have administrative priviledges because it won’t work under normal or limited user account type (perhaps it can be done, but i think this is the easiest way for me). And the RunAs command from Windows XP require you to type the user account password with higher priviledges everytime you want to use it (and using the /savecred switch doesn’t look to good for me) …

After searching for a while, i found a good programs that can help me to solve this problem, and the program name is PsExec from Sysinternals

For easier reading here’s the summary on what i do next :

• Download the PsExec
• Copy the PsExec executable into the Windows Directory (because it’s already in your Environment Variable Path, and i’m sure she won’t find it in there)
• Create a batch file to run the YASU executable using account with higher priviledges (using this command : psexec -d -u username -p password program_name)
• Create a shortcut for it on All Users Desktop and change the shortcut Run options to minimized, so she won’t see anything
• Change the Icon so it looks nice a:P

That’s it … The computer’s all set to run The Sims 2 without CD