Find out more about this powerful networked fax system...             NetCFax XP clients F.A.Q Page

PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING NOTES CAREFULLY

THEY ONLY APPLY TO THE INSTALLATION AND USE OF THE FAX CLIENT ON XP MACHINES THAT HAVE MULTIPLE LOGIN ACCOUNTS, ONE OR MORE OF WHICH IS A RESTRICTED RIGHTS ACCESS ACCOUNT (LIMITED ACCOUNT)

NB - The printer information also applies to Windows Vista

XP HOME SYSTEMS (ONLY)

If you are or want to run NetCFax client on the XP Home version of Windows, and you intend to use it when logged into Windows with a limited access account there are TWO VERY IMPORTANT CHANGES you MUST MAKE manually.

The first one is that you need to ensure that the access rights for standard users to the main install folder for the fax client must be set to "FULL CONTROL".  Sadly, Microsoft have typically chosen not to make this particularly easy to achieve on XP HOME systems.

The only way (as documented by Microsoft) to achieve this relatively simple task is that you first of all have to start Windows XP HOME in SAFE MODE. 

To do this, you normally need to press the F8 key at what is known as the Post screen, which is one of the first black screens that appear when you start the machine.  We suggest you keep clicking F8 every second or so until you get the list of Windows start up options on your screen.  Then select any of the SAFE MODE options and let windows start.

Once Windows is running in Safe Mode, open Windows Explorer or My Computer, and navigate down to the folder you installed the NetCFax client into.  By default this is either in \program files\netcfax client or possibly in \NetCPlus\netcfax client.  

Now right click on the folder name on the left hand side list, and select Properties.  Click on the "Security" tab, and then select the "Users" entry that is usually at the bottom of the list.

The access rights for this LIMITED access windows login group will be displayed, and all you need to do is to check the "Full control" option, and then the OK button. 

Now restart Windows XP HOME as you do normally, and the fax client should  run correctly even when logged in as a LIMITED user. 

IMPORTANT - See further down for changes that also MUST BE MADE to the fax printer drivers spool file access rights.

XP PRO SYSTEMS

NetCFax does not require any particularly special setup at all to run under any windows login account that has administrator rights, but there are some (perhaps less than obvious) things you need to do to be able to install the NetCFax client so that XP Pro user accounts with only restricted access rights ('Limited accounts') can also use it.


BACKGROUND
Most Windows software today has to be installed by an account that has administrator rights.  This is forced on you by the various Windows security policies.  Under XP Pro this is made worse by the fact that multiple login accounts are actually running under what is called "Windows Terminal Services".  What is even worse, all 'LIMITED ACCESS" login accounts have various further limitations in terms of access to folders and also printers.


SOLUTION
If you want a user under Windows XP Pro whose normal login only has restricted rights, you need to follow the fully detailed instructions below carefully.

There are TWO SECTIONS to this, and both are very important...

SECTION ONE - installing the fax client

First - Where we suggest the machine is rebooted, this is not due to NetCFax, but because our own experiences have shown us that most changes to the Windows login access rights do not come into effect until a reboot has taken place.


STEP

DESCRIPTION of operation to perform

LOGIN
in use

1

Login to XP Pro using an account that has full administrator access rights. (we will call it ADMINUSER for clarity here)

ADMINUSER

2 INSTALL the NetCFax client fully.
When you are asked if the system is running under a Windows Domain, check the YES option!

If you are prompted to let it install the fax printer driver, allow it to do so ! 

ADMINUSER
3 If the install tells you to reboot the machine - do so. ADMINUSER
4 Log in again using the same account (ADMINUSER ADMINUSER
5 Start the NetCFax client using the desktop shortcut or start menu entry. ADMINUSER
6 If the fax printer was not installed by the install system, the Fax client should prompt you to let it install the fax client printer, so let it do so.  If for any reason it fails to install the printer more than once, you may need to reboot the box again.  If so repeat steps 10 - 12 again. ADMINUSER
8 Log in once more using the ADMINUSER account.  This should let the client configure the fax printer correctly for Windows XP. STDUSER
8 Log in again using the restricted account (STDUSER   STDUSER
9 That's it - Start the NetCFax client and use it normally. STDUSER

SECTION TWO - Printer driver configuration

Applies to XP Home and XP Pro

Configuring the Fax Printer driver

If you are on a Windows XP HOME system, you need to ALSO MAKE  THIS CHANGE WHEN LOGGED IN UNDER SAFE MODE.

To print to the fax client printer when logged in WITHOUT full Windows Administrator right, you may need to make a small change to the Fax Client Printer to stop it using the Windows spooler.  The NetCFax client now tries to check this for you, and if it is successful, it will reset it to not use print spooling automatically.

If it doesn't do so, make sure you are logged in with Windows administrator rights, then go to Start menu - Settings - Printers and Faxes and open the properties sheet for the fax client printer.  Once this is open, go to the Advanced tab and select the option you will find there to "Print Directly to the Printer" (in other words - NOT TO USE SPOOLING).

Click OK and close the property sheet.

The Fax client should then work with the fax printer correctly irrespective of their Windows login rights.

There is one other possible issue that only seems to occur very rarely.

ONLY if you log in with a Windows account that has Limited access rights, and find that the system appears to "hang" when you try to print to the fax printer, then you need to follow these instructions.

For reasons known only to Microsoft, many files have their access attributes changed in this scenario. This can cause problems when printing to the fax client fax printer from limited accounts. This is because there is a special control file that has to live in the WINDOWS\SYSTEM32 folder named simply NCPFaxClientApp (or NCPFaxServerApp for the fax server). NB - These files do NOT have any period or file suffix, and are ZERO BYTES IN LENGTH. These files MUST BE CHANGED TO ALLOW FULL READ + WRITE + MODIFY ACCESS RIGHTS, so you need to check the properties for this/these files and ensure that for all types of windows login account that are going to use the fax client and the fax printer on that machine, ALL of these attributes are allowed.

The fax printer will then be available to all accounts on that machine.

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