Unable to publish preview with DITA toolkit

[pmasal]

When our users try to publish a preview of a DITA topic, they receive the attached error dialog from XMetaL, and no preview is produced.
But when I navigate to C:Userswindows-useridAppDataRoamingSoftQuadXMetaL Shared, unset the readonly box in properties, and apply it to all files and subfolders, I can run the preview again.
Is there any way to avoid this issue? Each time users logoff from windows, the problem happens again, and they must repeat the process.
Thanks!
Paul Masalsky
Big Company Based in Seattle, WA

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[Derek Read]

By default this folder (and all folders and files in AppData) are not usually readonly. Our software (and the DITA Open Toolkit itself) needs to write to to this location, so these folders must be writable.

Check with your IT people to see what they have configured (anti-virus or other protection) that is making these changes. They will need to adjust things in order for this feature to function.

XMetaL Author Enterprise also writes files one folder up (SoftQuad), so it is at that level down that should be writeable. If the software cannot write to the SoftQuad folder then quite a few other features will be broken as well.

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[pmasal]

Thanks as always, Derek. Can you tell me where in C:Userswindows-useridAppData the XMetaL preview function must write? I'm using a CMS with XMetaL integration, which downloadsupdates from our internal central server to C:Userswindows-useridAppDataRoamingSoftQuadXMetaL Shared with no worries. That's why it's strange that the preview can't work with our permissions on C:Userswindows-useridAppData. Is there a service account that's trying to access that folder?

Many thanks for any additional help you can give, as this is impacting over 200 users.
Paul

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[Derek Read]

When you generate output using the DITA OT the DITA OT is first deployed here for the current Windows user:
%appdata%SoftQuadXMetaL SharedDITA_OT
%appdata%SoftQuadXMetaL SharedRenderX
%appdata%SoftQuadXMetaL SharedSaxon

So that entire folder (SoftQuad) must be writable.
Note that %appdata% location varies depending on Windows version and IT's configuration of Windows. In your case it sounds like it is located here:
C:Userswindows-useridAppDataRoaming

Folders and files for the DITA OT are deployed there (to the path above) by copying them from here (which is where they are installed to):
C:Program FilesCommon FilesXMetaL Shared

That folder doesn't need to be writable after installation but the user does need read permission (which should be default).

There are quite a few files inside %appdata%SoftQuadDITA_OT that are written to by the DITA OT itself when it is running (when you are generating output).

XMetaL Author Enterprise deploys a license for RenderX XEP into the same location inside the RenderX subfolder which is used to generate PDF for deliverables that use RenderX XEP, so that needs to be writable as well.

In addition to the DITA OT needing full read / write access to that location XMetaL Author Enterprise writes configuration and user preference settings to %appdata%SoftQuad (and various subfolders depending on what it is writing).

If %appdata%SoftQuad is left fully read/write for current user then you don't need to worry about the specifics above. I think it would probably be a nightmare to try to lock down individual folders. And to what purpose?

Some files may also be written to the following location (also always read/write for current user by default):
%userprofile%Local SettingsTemp
%userprofile%Local SettingsTempXMetaL

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