Running Embedded Studio Tools on Vista

While running Embedded Studio tools such as Target Designer, Component Designer, or Component Database Manager on Vista, likely you would have seen error messages indicating failure in logging on to the component database – see Figure 1 below. This is because of a new feature in Vista called User Account Control (UAC).

Figure 1: Failure in logging on to the component database

There are many ways to work around UAC. The simplest workaround is running the tools as the administrator from the Start orb:

1. 1. Click on the Start orb
   2. Type the name of the tool, e.g., Target Designer, in the Search box
   3. Hold <Ctrl>-<Shift> and hit <Enter>
   4. Click Continue or Allow  

Another workaround is creating a shortcut to each tool and checking the “Run this program as an administrator” check box on the Compatibility tab of the shortcut’s properties – see Figure 2 below.

Figure 2: Shortcut’s properties 

See Sarah’s blog on Installing and Running the Windows XP Embedded Tool Suite on Windows Vista for details on creating shortcuts and running as administrator. 

Yet another workaround is executing a couple of stored procedures to grant full access to the component database to a particular user such as yourself:

1. Run sqlcmd as Administrator on your system where the component database resides

2. Execute

            EXEC sp_grantlogin '<domain>\<user>'

            EXEC sp_addsrvrolemember '<domain>\<user>', 'sysadmin'

where <domain> is your domain and <user> your username

3. Exit sqlcmd

4. Run the Embedded Studio tools as usual

Additional workarounds include logging on and running as Administrator, turning off UAC, etc. See Sarah’s blog for details on these workarounds.

 - Cuong

Comments

• Anonymous
  January 16, 2007
  The comment has been removed