Forums mIRC Help mIRC Does Not Save Changed Options Settings

I have changed my username and some perform on connect settings, but mIRC never remembers my changes. Is mIRC poorly written, and requires elevated user privileges to save settings, or is something else wrong? It does not seem to be writing to mirc.ini. Thanks.

mIRC is, in most users' opinion, excellently written, not poorly.
Some mIRC settings require you to completely exit/close the program before they are saved/updated in the ini files.
If mIRC isn't saving the information when you do that, ensure that the files and/or directory haven't become read only.

None of the .ini files are set to read-only. Yes, I've quit and restarted mIRC. mIRC appears to have corrupted itself, I suppose, I'll do a re-install.

I have verified that mIRC is not written correctly to function properly with LUA Windows NT accounts. mIRC requires administrative privileges to save edited settings, despite the fact that .ini files are not set to read-only. mIRC should be written with best security practices in mind, as recommended by Microsoft and others. mIRC does not follow MS programming guidelines. This is a problem.

From http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/maintain/luawinxp.mspx: "Some programs require administrative privileges to run. Typically, this restriction comes from coding errors or poor implementation of programming and security guidelines."

You're right, mIRC isn't written wth modern multi-user OSes in mind. The reason for the issue is that by default it tries to save all settings into it's installation location (ie. c:\Program Files\mIRC) which will cause problems for users with restricted access. To get around the problem you can simply change your mIRC shortcut's "target" field to save all settings into a user-accessible directory by adding a command line switch like so:



(You'll have to create the directory first).

Of course this isn't an ideal solution but if you want to get mIRC running until this is fixed then it's the simplest way.

I've also found another work around. One can use a secondary log-on service, by creating a user account with power user privileges, then right-click on the shortcut to mIRC. Check "Run with different credentials." Then click Ok. Then when you click on the mIRC shortcut, enter the username and password for the secondary account. I find this slightly quicker than right-click, RunAs.

Will test with MS ACT...

Keep in mind that mIRC wasn't written for current OSes. It's been updated, but not completely rewritten. So some things haven't been implemented that are specifically for modern OSes (such as multiple users). I'd suggest a feature request for it rather than considering it a bug or bad coding. It's not bad coding if it was never intended to work with multiple users.

Um, XP has been out for 6 years...about time...

So request the feature if you want it. I certainly don't need it, so it would be up to you or another who wants it to request it.

Of course you do. Unless you're running Windows 9x. Anyways, this isn't a feature request, this is a bug in mIRC, due to sloppy programming.

No, I don't. I use XP and settings save just fine for me. Of course, I use Administrative priveledges. And before you tell me that's dangerous, I'm behind a good firewall and a router and I know how to maintain my computer and notice anything unusual, so I am not concerned.

If you think being behind a firewall is enough (and a NAT is a form of firewall) to protect you...something isn't clicking. Part of maintaining a PC is prevention.

So dont use it pretty simple solution. Go find another chat prog or do some coding yourself and make the perfect application.

I think the point is to improve mIRC. Why are you here?

Unless you make some hacker really mad, the chances of anyone purposely trying to get into your computer is extremely low. Paranoia isn't really any help to anyone. If someone wants to try to hack your computer and has the skill to bypass a router's port blocking and a quality firewall, then they probably have the skill to damage your computer regardless if you're on admin or not.

I have used computers for a VERY long time and I know how to monitor it for any changes or anything unusual. I'm not concerned and will continue to use admin priveledges. Considering the amount of things I need to install/uninstall on a regular basis, I'm not about to start changing logins constantly.

As I stated, if you want the feature added, then request it. I don't mind if it's there or not because it doesn't affect me.

You assume someone has to purposefully attack you in order to have any chance of exploiting you. This is a mistake. Botnets of tens of thousands of computers aren't brought about because there are thousands of crackers working around the clock breaking into people's computers, they're caused by exploiting two things:
1) User ignorance
2) Software flaws

While you can learn to minimize the first one, all the experience and training in the world won't help you on the second unless you find a way to formally prove that all of the programs you use are unexploitable. Given that there are dozens of exploitable bugs found in everyday software each year I think it's fair to say that nobody's even close to that yet. Considering that many of these bugs require no user interaction whatsoever (drive-bys) I think it's arrogant to presume you're invulnerable to them.

The WMF exploit is a case in point, a bug that allowed arbitrary code execution was unfound and unpatched across half a dozen different versions of Windows. All you had to do was visit a website or receive an e-mail that contained a WMF image designed to exploit it. I don't think your intuition for security would help you in that situation.

Anyway, I'm getting completely off-topic. The point is that security conscious users should be running with the least user access they need to do what they need in everyday situations. As MSTCrow has pointed out, this can be a major problem for mIRC and I can only imagine that Vista reacts very badly to this situation with UAP enabled. It may not be a bug per-se but it's definitely something that needs to be changed for mIRC to continue running smoothly on modern OSes.

Ways to avoid problems include:

1) Avoiding known specific kinds of sites (warez, porn, etc) help prevent such problems.

2) Keeping track of everything that happens on your computer (event monitoring and tracking) as well as monitoring all incoming and outgoing traffic.

3) Don't allow any popups to run (that's where a large majority of issues lie).

4) Stay updated/patched (it at least helps known issues).

5) Continually scan for viruses, trojans, and other malware.

Yes, that's not the only things needed to remain free of such issues, but these are simple ones that most people should be able to do. Add these to your normal security and you are unlikely to have many issues.

Considering I've been using the internet since DOS days and have no problems with any kind of security issues other than the random virus, I'm not too worried about it.

If you feel that's unsafe, then that's your choice. I consider myself to be as safe as I need to be. If something did happen, I can take action at that time. If after decades of use I haven't had any problems, I'm not about to start being worried about using Admin rights. As I said, I install/uninstall things constantly (every other day at least) and switching between users to do so is not worth it.

As I said, I don't care if it's added. I think it's good to add that. PUT IT AS A FEATURE REQUEST (still not done). I only said that it doesn't matter to me because it doesn't affect me.

Well I'll save this becoming an endless debate by just saying that's your choice then.

There's no point putting it as a feature request since it's already been submitted as a bug report. If necessary a mod can move it.