i am unable to install what i think is an update

The exact words of the message is this:

Unable to Install

The installer could not write Guild Wars to the specified directory. Please check that you have administrative access, that you have permission to install in the specified directory, and there is sufficient space available on the drive.
-Arena Net

I have no clue how to check if i have administrative a access, or if i have permission to install in the specified directory. i know for sure that i have sufficient space availabe on the drive.
What should i do? please help!

Check your firewall, router and any internet security features, etc that you have. (Norton, McAfee, etc)

First off - your post title says you think you're installing an update? Do you already have Guild Wars installed on this machine? If so, then stop right now. Guild Wars automatically updates itself - just run the game and you'll be up to date.

If the game is not yet installed on your machine, then continue on...

I believe this means that you are logged in as a limited user instead of an administrator, meaning you don't have permission to write files to the c:\program files\guildwars directory.

Is this someone else's computer? If so, they'll need to log in and allow the installation using their security settings. If it's your computer, you need to log in as an administrator in order to gain installation rights.

Edit: Ok, I think I saw someone else having the same problem over on the gwonline forum (or was that you posting there?) I believe I misunderstood what you were talking about. If I understand correctly now, this occurred during the normal update procedure (just launching the game)?

Yes, it occurred during just launching the game, but i figured out the problem. I had a program checking for viruses, this program is called trend. This is the first time I've had it check for viruses since I installed Guild Wars, and it must've blocked the game. I checked today if it works and it does.

Thanks for the help

Hmm, as of today I'm getting exactly the same problem and message.

Sounds like you're missing write permissions on file system level.

Go to the folder where GuildWars is installed (something like: C:\Program Files\GUILD WARS). Right-click on that folder and choose "Properties". Select the tab "Security".

You'll see a list of user names and/or groups and what they are allowed to do in this directory. You have to make sure that:

*The username under which you are logged in is listed here (or a group to which this username belongs)
*This username has "Full control" set to "Allow"
*No group to which this user belongs has any entries set to "Deny"

The easiest way to make sure of this (but also a potental security hole) is to add the group "Everyone" (if it isn't already there) and give it full control and remove all other entries.

i am having the same issue as well, although none of the above solutions are working. It was fine up until this weekend update for the heros thing.

GW's connects but after about 10 secs gives up and says it cant write to the folder. Nothing is blocked, it worked 3 days ago, nothing has changed.



Any other ideas?

Right click GW folder and go to Properties. Untick Read Only.

I have the same issue. I have unchecked read only and applied the settings repeatedly, and they don't seem to take. I am logged in with Administrative privileges and have plenty of available disk space. Any other advise?

Actually, I just found the cause of my issue in a Google search. I have Spybot Search & Destroy installed with the Teatimer option turned on. Turning off the Tea Timer resolved the issue. Just updated Spybot yesterday, they must have changed something.

Just to let others with the problem know, I fixed my issue, and it turned out to have nothing to do with write permissions, administrator permissions or read only issues.

I just uninstalled it and reinstalled it again.

Problem went away.

I think Vista runs multiple copies of GW on this new update, because when I uninstalled it, it wouldn't remove GW.exe even though it wasn't listed as running, but it acted like it was.

So I rebooted, and removed GW.exe manually after the uninstall.

Then with the GW folder deleted did a new install of the game.

Worked right away after that.

Just for the record.

I haven't played since just before the HA update ~ 3/29/07. This morning I received the error mentioned above, after an update had downloaded. Solution came via the tea timer turn off method.