As Steven says, it can be tricky. A couple of tools from
www.sysinternals.com, called RegMon and FileMon can save the day, though.
Registry permissions are altered using regedt32.exe.
Sometimes it can be a pain to get stuff right. Often the files that need
changing reside in the Program Files directory relating to the product.
Similarly, registry keys under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software often need
changing.
It really depends on the environment. Sometimes giving Power User rights is
OK. It depends how much control you want to give.
At the end of the day, software writers should be writing code that runs
under Windows 2000. If they're not, choosing another product that does work
properly is the best move. I appreciate that's not always possible, in
which case voicing your complaint to the vendor in question is probably the
best you can do.
Regards
Oli