Hi,
FWIW I downgraded several client sites from Vista back to XP over the weekend, the machines are running considerably faster and no UAC prompts.

Vista is a huck of garbage.

P.S. If you have an OEM version of Vista, uninstall the Office 2007 trial version after installing Office 2003, and see what happens, the uninstall doesn't work.

>IMO, this Vista UAC thing is really poorly implemented. The Virtualization "feature" seems so dangerous, because an app can be using files that it thinks are centrally located (in the Program Files, for instance), when in fact, Vista has "silently" copied them to the Virtual folder under the Users\ folder tree, and the app is happily running using a copy of the files that are located off in never never land. How scary is that! Even MS apps, such as Visual Studio, IIS, and others are having problems with this. See the link below:
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>http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/vstudio/aa972193.aspx
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>Ok, so I'm fuming, but I calm down and say, ok, let's put a check in my app to make sure I'm running "As Administrator". Well the only way I can see to do that check is to try and delete a file in your Program Files area that the installer created. You can't simply try opening a file for "write" access or creating a new file, because it will "silently" be copied over to the Virtual folder and you'll be able to open or create it. Golly, that's a disaster waiting in the shadows! IMO, Virtualization should be "OFF" by default, or either never invented. At the least, does anyone know of a method to determine if you are running "As Administrator"? Trying to create or open files for write doesn't do it.
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>Does this UAC default really solve any security issues anyway, for what it's worth? What about malware writing to data folders? Why doesn't that have to be as protected as Program Files? And, exactly where are we supposed to put data files that are shared by "All Users"? I'm just amazed that Vista made such a huge problem for so many apps, for a change that doesn't seem to buy all that much security. But I'm definitely not the expert.
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>Ok, I feel better, I think... If anyone can offer some advice that would help. I know I probably need to redesign my app and where it stores data, and how it does upgrades, etc, but I'm thinking, why? What security is all this buying? Users are going to get so sick of clicking "Allow this" and "Allow that", they will be numb to any security breaches. I'm already starting to click those prompts without reading them.
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>Anyway, I'm about to change my app's install folder to a new root, called "Programs", and get on with life, knowing that my app runs solid again as it did on XP, if it's installed outside of Program Files.
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>Mark
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>
>>Hi Jim.
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>>>I've done a bit more research and according to what I've read, any files created in subfolders under ProgramData\ at install time are automatically read/write to all users, but to create/delete files your program needs administrator rights (one way or another). So as long as you create the folder and file through the installer, you should be OK. That doesn't address the issue of dynamically creating shared files, but I haven't had time to investigate that issue yet.
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>>I did a little playing tonight and found that files created in subfolders of ProgramData could only be written to by the creator user. Even admins can't modify a file created by another user. I haven't tested this with an installer, but I suspect the rules will be the same -- if the installer runs elevated as an admin user, any files it creates in ProgramData will be read-only to other users.
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>>I also found that files and folders in \Users\Public are read-write to all users, so perhaps that's the place to store global data.
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>>Still playing ...
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>>Doug