Lacerte Tax 2008 in Restricted User Environment

Those of you that have had the misfortune to have to work in IT and support Lacerte Tax know the pain that it causes. Not only is it written poorly from a Server – client standpoint but also as an application in general. However after much swearing and frustration I have figured out the security rights to grant so that you can keep a user at user level, and still be able to run Lacerte.

  1.    Install Lacerte from the network as an administrator on the machine. Make sure it works.
  2.    Open Windows Explorer and go to the C: drive.
  3.    Right Click the Lacerte folder and select properties.
  4.    Go to the Security Tab and select Users.



  5.    Grant them modify rights click apply and ok.
  6.    Go to C:\Windows you will want to grant users modify rights on the following files: W08Tax.ini, Lacerte.ini, WTAXSYNC.ini.

Please note for each year of Lacerte installed there should be a corresponding W(Year)Tax.ini file.

  7.    Go to Start > Run > Regedit.
  8.    Browse to HKLM > Software > Intuit
  9.    Right click the Intuit key and select Permissions.
  10.    Grant users Full Control over the key, click ok.



  11.    Right click the Lacerte key and select Permissions.
  12.    Grant users Full Control over the key, click ok.

*Note* Your domain users will need modify rights over the network locations where the Lacerte data is held as well.

That should do it, you should now be able to run Lacerte as a regular limited user without having to give up the keys to kingdom.

To Lacerte all I have to say is FIRE YOUR PROGRAMMERS. The amount you charge your customer base per year for your software and the lack of writing it for an enterprise environment is unforgivable. Your product is a pile of crap. I’d be more than happy to give you some ideas on how to improve it but something tells me I won’t hear from you.