Backburner rendering with Local account, folder discrepancy

[CAMedeck]

We are upgrading to 3ds Max Design 2014 soon, and working on getting Backburner 2014 configured to work with our network.  I know it is preferable to run the Server service with a dedicated User account, but we would like to use the Local System account due to certain reasons that I won't get into.

After some searching, I found that the backburner.xml file used by the Local system account is found here: 

C:\Windows\SysWOW64\config\systemprofile\AppData\Local\backburner

but when I try to render something through Backburner, it errors saying it can't open files here:

C:\Windows\System32\config\systemprofile\AppData\Local\backburner\ServerJob

All the files needed for rendering are saved in the SysWOW64 folder, and there is no "backburner" folder created under System32.  Does anyone know why Backburner is looking for anything under System32, and how to fix this?  Thanks.

[CAMedeck]

Okay, I think I've solved this one.  Since Backburner is a 32-bit program, it is defaulting to the SysWOW64 folder for it's information.  However, it was looking into the System32 folder, where no data was being stored.  

In the folder the XML file is located (C:\Windows\SysWOW64\config\systemprofile\AppData\Local\backburner) there is also a file called nrapi.conf that can be edited with Notepad.  Changing the paths there to say SysWOW64 instead of System32 seems to have fixed the problem.  Now when Backburner writes the scene files in the ServerJob folder (under SysWOW64) it is now looking in the correct location.

Checking a computer still running Backburner 2008, this nrapi.conf file still shows the System32 folder, so I don't know why this isn't a bigger issue, since it's been around for a while.  Unless there is something else that changed with BB 2014.

[Anonymous]

kudos just for this bit "C:\Windows\System32\config\systemprofile\AppData\Local"

cheers.

[itsupport]

Thanks for the information!

Does a node connect to manager using the Local account?

I could never manage for a node to connect to manager with anything but a dedicated domain account.

[CAMedeck]

Yes, the node connects to the Manager using the Local System account.  Our networking guy had to give the local account permissions to the server folders we needed to access, however.  This is usually the reason for creating a dedicated account.

We haven't fully deployed this, but in testing the local system account is able to run Backburner Server, connect to the Manager, render jobs and save to our network folder.

[itsupport]

Oh, thats interesting.

The reason I said that:

I created a simple script that launches backburner service when a user logs off from a computer and stops it when a user logs on. That way we can have our farm dynamicaly expand, shrink depending on users being logged on, off. We do not have a dedicated farm so thats the only means of rendering. 

I had a bit of issue getting that script to run with all the permissions involved but perhaps Local Account might be worth looking into again.