Why does the Lookout default login switch not always work?

[JTJams]

On some Lookout systems, the default login switch does not work. In other words, as I configure a default login, I'm still prompted to enter a password on some installations and not on others. This is especially a problem when running Lookout as an NT Service.

[Carl L]

JTJams,
Do you have write-access to the Lookout folder on all the machines? The default login information is stored in the Lookout.ini file (the password is encrypted). If you do not have write-access, Lookout would not be able to update the lookout.ini file and the changes would not take afffect.

Carl L.
National Instruments
www.ni.com/ask

[JTJams]

Thanks for the reply. I have configured the lookout.ini file for the required write-access, but not the entire folder - besides, I'm configuring the dafault user while logged in to Win 2000 as administrator. All other settings appear to be written, including the default user name, but the user is still prompted to enter a password at startup as the default user name is dislpayed. Other installations simply startup with no user input required as the default user is logged in.

[Robert_Jackson]

Sir,
I tested this with my own installation of Lookout, and if I have the "Set as Default Login user" checked and Login as Administrator on my XP machine then on start up I am not prompted for a password. I had another customer who wanted to be prompted all the time so we disabled this same check box and were successful. If this box is checked and you still experience this behavior then I would consider Carl's previous advice and make sure the entire folder has write access.
Regards,
Robert Jackson
Application Engineer
National Instruments

[JTJams]

Thanks for the comments. I have concluded that this definitely is a user access rights issue, as Administrator or Power Level Users don't have this problem. I guess I'll have to give in and configure the entire folder for user-level write access - against my preference, because I feel a need to have a secure system. Eventually, I imagine I'll have to identify exactly which files I need to reconfigure for user-level write access.

[Carl L]

To change the default login you should only need write access to the lookout.ini file. I tried to duplicate what you saw and was not able to do so. Are you using a FAT32 to NTFS file system? I tried the following:

On a Windows 2000 computer with FAT32, I selected the Lookout folder and went into the properties. I set it to Read-Only. When I clicked apply it asked if I wanted to apply it to subfolders and files. I said yes. Now all the files where marked read-only, so I selected just the lookout.ini file and unchecked the read-only. I opened Lookout and changed the default log in and the change took effect.

On a Windows XP computer with NTFS. I went into the security tab for the Lookout folder and and only gave permissions f
or Users to have Read & Execute, List Folder Content and Read. Then once again I went to the Lookout.ini file and on the security tab I set it to also have Write permission. I then logged on as a user and was successful in updating the default login.

When using FAT32 you just have the Read-Only and Archive options to worry about. With NTFS then you have to worry about the Security permissions as well. If this does not help, you could always give write-access once, update the default login and then turn the write access afterwards.

Carl L
National Instruments
www.ni.com/ask

[JTJams]

Thanks again for your comments, Carl. After changing the security access of just the lookout.ini file and still repeating the problem, I have gone ahead and configured the entire National Instruments folder for User-level write access and I'm still experiencing the same problem - when logged in to Win 2000 (NTFS) at a "User" level, the user is always prompted to enter a password and Lookout waits to run until this is entered. As you can see, this can be un-desirable when auto-starting Lookout with the Windows startup. I would configure Lookout to run as an NT Service, but then some other issues surface.
When logged in to Win 2000 at an "Administrator" level, the user is not prompted to enter a password. Lookout simply ssta
rts and runs with the default user logged on.
Again, I appreciate your feedback. At what level are you logging into Win 2000 - Admin, User? I'm going to look through the system security policy next and see if I can find any entries that may affect Lookout. Is it possible that Lookout may be refering to some keys in the registry when allowing a user's access level and file rights to affect the startup?

[Carl L]

I was logging in as User on the Windows XP machine. I stayed as Adminstrator on the Windows 2000 machine as I didn't think it would make a difference.

I have tried some more things now and see what you are seeing on both the Windows 2000 and XP machine. Although I don't know exactly what is going on, I have a feasible solution for you. As you found out it doesn't have to do with write-access to the Lookout folder. You need write-access to the lookout.ini file in order to update the information, however this seems to work okay on even when logged in as User. Also even if you set the default login as Administrator and then switch to User it will still fail to login. However what I found is that if you do not have
a password on the account then the login works even as a user.

There fore my suggestion is to create an account with out a password (probably with a very low security level) and set that as the default login. Or simply use the Guest account as the default login. This will allow the process to start running as soon as the machine starts up. Later you can login using an account with a higher security level. To make sure that no one overrides the default login with another account that has a password, you could set the lookout.ini file to be read-only (this would prevent any other changes to Lookout defaults as well).

Carl L
National Instruments
www.ni.com/ask

[JTJams]

Thanks for the feedback, Carl. Evidently, Lookout checks the Win2000 user when launching Lookout and does not read the password if the user does not have Admin access. I wish this was configurable, but I appreciate your work-around and will implement it with either the Guest account of configure (nobody) as the default login - I've found that to work as well.

Thanks again, JTS

[erblock]

I have two Windows 2003 servers running Lookout 5.1 under standard Domain User accounts. One of the servers keeps the password and logs on automatically just fine. The other server just won't do it. (same lookout.sec files, and same default logon username for both machines)

Are there any updates available on this? Is Lookout 6.0 going to have the same issues
Ed