X-Fi Mode Switching and XP File Permissi

Question

I have my file permissions locked down pretty tightly for all accounts except the Administrator. This is great for preventing major file system meltdowns whenever my wife picks up an email virus, but it can also make trouble now and then. The X-Fi appears to fall into the file restrictions trap.
The card: XtremeMusic
The issue: I cannot change the current mode unless I am running an account with unlimited write access to my hard dri've (in this case, my administrator account).
I have determined this is a file permissions problem by creating an account which is part of the administrators group, but which has limited write access to the hard dri've. If it was a registry problem then this test account would switch modes no problem since it has the same access to the registry as any administrator. Additionally, if I give unlimited write access to any account which can't switch modes, it suddenly can switch modes no problem.
I have tried making the Creative folder in 'Program Files' write accessible by all user accounts, but this does not do the trick. There are several Creative files within the 'Windows' folder, and I have a suspicion that I need to give write access to something here, but it is not immediately self evident.
Does anyone know which files and folders specifically require write access for X-Fi mode switching to work? Is there any documentation about how mode switching is achieved (write a file, change a registry value, push data directly to the card)?
Thanks.
Drailex_Mauder

Answer 1

pjt23,
Funny you should mention that, I continued my search for the answer while waiting for potential replies, so I downloaded FileMon and picked away at the output. My discovery was useful.
It seems that when modes are changed CTXFISPI.EXE reads and writes files in this directory:
C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Creative\Spi\
{00000005-00000000-00000007-000002-00000005-00202}\Modes
If you think like me, you might have made the 'All Users' folder read only to prevent the technically inept members of your household from breaking things. Unfortunately, this prevents CTXFISPI.EXE from reading and writing the files it needs to change modes.
To fix this scenario, you don't need to make the entire 'All Users' folder generally writable, you only need to make sure that the above 'Modes' subfolder is writeable by all users that need to change modes. Most likely, you will want to give either 'Everyone' or 'Authenticated Users' full access to this folder.
If the reader doesn't know how to do this then it probably doesn't apply (since the file permissions should be set as their defaults), however, if you want to learn something new then I suggest you search "xp file permissions tutorial" on Google and do some reading.
Of course, this information will only be relevant for Windows XP Pro users (and maybe Windows 2000, but I haven't confirmed). Sorry if you have XP Home, but setting file permissions is a real drag which requires you to boot into safe mode. It is highly unlikely that file permissions are your problem if you can't switch modes when using XP Home.
The interesting part of all this is that it implies that there must be a way to invoke CTXFISPI.EXE to make mode changes. If we can determine how it works, then the community can work on third party apps which allow mode changes through scripts or a tray app menu.
I'm going to spawn a new thread with this information to see if it goes anywhere.
Drailex_Mauder