Marion

Those reading here know I have had a frustrating series of failures trying to install zadig on my Win XP Professional computer.  Today I found the problem and will share what I can, hoping to help others with similar problems.  I will include more than necessary information so others may recognize these symptoms and know how I proceeded.
 
The fundamental problem was that the computer had problems with the Administrator set up.  It is recommended (and probably necessary) to install zdiag as the computer Administrator.  Right click on the zadig file and select Run as ...  When I tried that, my name came up for that operation.  However at the bottom of the page was another selection "Administrator".  That selection required a Password. There was no password for anything called Administrator.  Everything I tried produced a message saying an invalid password or user. I went back to User Accounts and added a Password for my name.  Now I could select my name and Password under the Administrator, but that did not work either...
 
In Control Panel I checked User Accounts and found my name.  It showed my name as Computer Administrator.   And I was the only user therein.  Clearly that was not working.
 
At a suggestion made on this forum, I booted the computer in Safe Mode.  In Safe Mode I opened User Accounts and found there were TWO computer administrators.  I was shown as one Administrator. But there was another simply called Administrator.  I added a Password for the Administrator user.  After rebooting the computer in Normal Mode, I right clicked zadig and selected Run as. And then selected Administrator at the bottom of the window, and entered the new Password.  zadig installed without "batting an eye" .  So easy when things are right, and so impossible when they are not.
 
I set up this computer from scratch.  I installed the hardware and the operating system software (Win XP Pro).  Nowhere in that process did I (knowingly) set up a Computer Administrator other than myself.  Perhaps installation of the operating system did that automatically.  But I thought since my name was shown as a Computer Administrator, I could in fact run installations as the Computer Administrator.  That was obviously wrong.
 
On my lesser Win XP computer (Home Edition), I did not encounter this problem. zadig installed on the first try and without any problems   Computers are a never ending learning process.
 
Hopefully the above information will help others as much as I have been helped by members of the SDRSharp Yahoo group.
 
Happy Marion