Re: Help! "Access is Denied" Installation on WinXP rolled

Thanks for helping Joshua!

While I do attempt to install PostgreSQL using my normal windows account
(which of course has administrative rights), I've installed PostgreSQL
before and never run into this problem. It appears that as long as you
establish a different user name which isn't an administrator to run the
service under then it should be ok. The problem with actually attempting
to do the entire install under a non-administrative account is that
naturally windows doesn't let it touch any system directories (i.e. the
Windows directory - which PostgreSQL needs access to) and won't let it
modify any permissions. Essentially, literally installing an application
with a non-administrative account is nearly impossible because that's
the whole purpose of having such things as non-administrative accounts.
I'm probably preaching to the choir here. Sorry about that. Here's the
contents of my init.db log if it helps...

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
The files belonging to this database system will be owned by user
"Administrator".
This user must also own the server process.

The database cluster will be initialized with locale C.

fixing permissions on existing directory C:/Program
Files/PostgreSQL/8.0/data ... ok
creating directory C:/Program Files/PostgreSQL/8.0/data/global ... ok
creating directory C:/Program Files/PostgreSQL/8.0/data/pg_xlog ... ok
creating directory C:/Program
Files/PostgreSQL/8.0/data/pg_xlog/archive_status ... ok
creating directory C:/Program Files/PostgreSQL/8.0/data/pg_clog ... ok
creating directory C:/Program Files/PostgreSQL/8.0/data/pg_subtrans ... ok
creating directory C:/Program Files/PostgreSQL/8.0/data/base ... ok
creating directory C:/Program Files/PostgreSQL/8.0/data/base/1 ... ok
creating directory C:/Program Files/PostgreSQL/8.0/data/pg_tblspc ... ok
selecting default max_connections ... Access is denied.
Access is denied.
Access is denied.
Access is denied.
Access is denied.
Access is denied.
10
selecting default shared_buffers ... Access is denied.
Access is denied.
Access is denied.
Access is denied.
Access is denied.
Access is denied.
Access is denied.
Access is denied.
Access is denied.
Access is denied.
Access is denied.
50
creating configuration files ... ok
creating template1 database in C:/Program
Files/PostgreSQL/8.0/data/base/1 ... ok
initializing pg_shadow ... Access is denied.
child process was terminated by signal 1
initdb: removing contents of data directory "C:/Program
Files/PostgreSQL/8.0/data"

Joshua D. Drake wrote:

>> log file it tells me to check before it deletes it in the rollback
>> it says repeatedly something about "access is denied". Below is the
>> actual install log (or a small portion of it, near the end where the
>> error occurs). Any ideas? Regards, Abe p.s. this is a repost from my
>> initial post on the novice list... which I've become aware is
>> relatively inactive.
>
>
> Did you check the initdb.log that was referenced in your Windows error
> message?
>
> I do not "know" this to be your issue but I am guess that you tried to
> install PostgreSQL with Administrator (or as an Administrator) rights.
>
> PostgreSQL must be installed as a non Administrative user on Windows.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Joshua D. Drake
>
>
>
>