How to make a program run without being administrator ?

[Quetzalcoatl]

I'm using Windows XP Home Edition.
How to make a program run without being administrator ?
I learnt thanks to this newsgroup that, in most cases, a program will not work
if the user can't write in the directory where this program has been installed.
Providing access to this directory in read/write for the users group generally
allows to solve the problem.
Sometimes, it is needed also to provide access rights to the \TEMP directory.
Sometimes also, you can cope with it by giving to the user temporary
administrator rights, installing the game with this user account, running the
game once, exiting and then going back to limited rights.
Problem : with Age of Empire II, all that does not work and limited users can't
play (administrators can).
(Also tried : various compatibility options, but this is out of scope as
administrators CAN play, where limited users CAN'T).

1/ How can I cope with it ?
2/ More generally, does anybody knows how I can capture what a program is doing
in terms of accesses, in order to be able to give the appropriate access rights
to the users on such or such directory ?

Thanks by advance.

--
God be with ye