Altap Salamander Support Forums

Hi,

Salamander and its internal viewer doesn't seem to support virtual scrolling with my laptop's touchpad (by Synaptics). Whether the driver is set to use item under cursor or selected item, no scrolling occurs in Salamander.

This is on Windows Vista.

Additional info:

As with Skype, Salamander loses virtual scrolling ability only when launched as administrator. Sadly, though, unlike Skype, Salamander often needs to be run as administrator.

Using Synaptics touch pad driver.

Maybe you have different settings for the Synaptics driver under the administrator account?

It's the same account. I was referring to running the program as administrator, which is an effect of using UAC under Vista.

roman2 wrote:which is an effect of using UAC under Vista

Another nasty Vista "feature"?

Note (not relevant to the described problem): Unfortunately Salamander is fundamentally broken by stupid UAC implementation, we need to separate the working core to another process. A lot of work. Vista is the worst Windows compatibility-wise.

Another process (in OS terms)?

roman2 wrote:Another process (in OS terms)?

Yes

Privileges can be elevated only for new process using UAC prompt (not for the running one). So Salamander must be divided into two processes. One will run with limited (standard) privileges, while second (executive core) can run with elevated privileges.

Is the virtual scrolling working with other programs than Skype and Salamander when run as administrator?

I don't have Vista, but I find it logical that windows handling and user input API is disabled from your userspace to elevated/Administrator userspace. Otherwise you'll be able to do some nasty stuff from programs with low permissions by sending user input messages to elevated programs.

th., after you asked, I tried it with Notepad and saw the same thing.

zarevak, thanks for your input. This gave me an idea to run SynTPEnh.exe (the name is self-explanatory, I think) as administrator too, and the problem went away. However, I don't understand the situation completely -- programs running as administrator let me input other types of input. I guess I am working as admin, by default, but all applications are given a reduced scope of privileges, by default. So, whatever's handled by the OS is handled as the administrator's level, and the rest -- with less privileges.

That's right, programs under Vista are run with reduced privileges even when you are Administrator - it's one of the new security features. Microsoft hopes, that normal program doesn't need Administrator privileges and that when the program does something wrong (due to bug or under attack from hacker) it cannot damage your system.

When the program is run with full privileges its no point to block UI messaging API, because the the program can do all the damage itself already.

(As an administrator, you can delete files in Windows folder. Programs run as Administrator can delete them as well. But programs run with reduced privileges cannot change files in Windows folder nor delete them. It would be security hole to enable these programs to send Message to Salamander saying: I'm pressing F8 for the user to delete files in Windows folder)