Ok so I bought a little laptop, installed the Rad tools and ToEEFE runs just fine as long as I 'run as administrator' (won't start otherwise). I have two problems: 1) This ridiculous 'permissions' garbage which demands I confirm every single action. TWICE. I mean I heard rumours about it, of course - out here in Oz, Apple ran a whole advertising campaign on how they DON'T have it - but this is beyond a joke. Confirming "yes, as administrator I approve this" would make sense if it was once. For ever. But two seperate pop-ups for approval, above and beyond the old "do you want to copy over your existing file?", every time I move, copy, change or save something? Is Microsoft trying to insult us? Who the hell tested this garbage and said, "yeah, thats how it should ship!"??? 2) This is the really bad one. I can play the game just fine, but I can't mod. The game refuses to allow me to change files in the ToEE folder - it claims there is no valid file to change, usually right after asking "that file exists, do you realy want to change it?" I was getting around that by changing the files on my USB stick then copying them over - that works, and guarantees I am always moving the latest files between machines - but attempts to create new folders in KotB for new maps etc have failed dismally. Furthermore, while I can run ToEEWB happily, when I try to do things like split a 2d map, it creates a new folder in somewhere called 'appdata/local/virtual store' and places it there! In fact some changes to new files in KotB get moved there as well. Again, who the hell came up with that? I have programs set to do something and it moves the files, without permission or informing me, into some obscure area that can't be navigated to with Explorer & which I only found by doing a manual serach for my missing files! Note that the game wasn't installed, it was moved over across a network: but it ran, so me changing a file here and there shouldn't be an issue, any more than copying over a txt document from an email should be an issue. And yes, I checked that both the files and folders weren't set to 'read only'. Please PLEASE tell me I can change something simple somewhere to stop this rubbish. O and I can't currently find my ToEE CD 1 so no, I won't be doing a reinstall of the game (shouldn't have to, either - game runs fine). And if you don't know the answer to this conundrum, please exercise some self-constraint and don't reply. Sorry to be blunt but I am in no mood for "hey I have no idea whats wrong and I know you said you can't find the CD but maybe if you reinstall the game?" comments.
Hey Ted - wonder if this info and links will help.... http://www.howtonetworking.com/vista/disableuac.htm And yes, I do think you should reinstall the game... Sorry if this is not the droid, erm info, you are looking for but it would seem turning off admin approval depends on which type of Vista you have... and ya dinnae say. But the file moving thing is the UAC thing. Vista not my cup of tea so asked my next door neighbour who does run it. Apologies in advance if it don't work.
OMG YOU FIXED IT!! :dance: I knew (hoped, prayed etc) it would be something simple It seems to work fine from that one little change. O and I have Windows Vista Home Basic Cheapskate version, although I didn't mention it the first time because I only saw that on reboot. Never paid any attention to it previously.
:rant: UAC exists because Microsoft needed a way to prevent programs written for Microsoft operating system users to be run on Microsoft operating systems. Seriously. And Microsoft intentionally made it annoying in the hopes that users would contact their software vendors and request UAC-compliant versions of the software (upgrades that users would pay $$ to developers to develop, who would then pay Microsoft $$ for the tools with which to develop). Seriously. Alternately, users could disable UAC, and Microsoft could deny liability for security violations on the theory that users intentionally disabled Microsoft's built0in security. Seriously. I wouldn't recommend a reinstall of ToEE, but rather a reinstall of your operating system, getting rid of Vista and replacing it with XP. Most PC manufacturers offer (higher-cost) downgrades to XP, but Microsoft still gets to count it as a Vista sale for accounting purposes. Seriously. :rant: Anyway, it looks like Zeb got your UAC issue fixed. You probably need more computer sophistication to fix your folder problems, but my understanding (i.e., what I've done with machines I've been forced to run with Vista) is that appropriately changing the folder Security permissions works. You do need to know some system administration, however. EDIT: I could probably log on to your computer and fix the Security if you don't want to install Vista. --thearioch
HK said My understanding is that Vista can be replaced by a Commodore VIC-20 emulator running on FreeDos, but that's neither here nor there. Windows 7 will allegedly replace Vista at a time "ultimately [to] be determined by meeting the quality bar." Despite being one to two years in the future, Microsoft has already determined that Windows 7 will meet this bar in late 2009 or early 2010. Smart shoppers will [once again] wait for SP1, which if previous trends hold, pushes the effective release date to about 2112. Fortunately, while Microsoft now counts most XP sales as Vista sales, Microsoft will support XP [SP3] through April 8th, 2114, which will probably mean Windows 7 SP2. As far as I can tell, Vista offers no technological incentive to upgrade stable Windows 2000 or XP workstations. --thearioch
Meh - what incentive was there to go from Win98 to XP? Bigger file sizes? I'll take stability, speed and backwards compatability over that any day. If my laptop had Win98 drivers this issue would not have come up. Thanks for the advice guys - made my night at 'work' far more productive. Setting yourself up for a 'karmic krunch' there, I'd say... :hahano:
What's really shoddy is the admin password thing not being configurable in 'entry-level' versions of Vista. It's one of the first things I turned off with Ubuntu - it's such a Mac idea that it irritates beyond belief.
The fundamental thing that is so frustrating about all of this is that they so swiftly and easily got to where they don't see the forest for the trees: computers are supposed to be fun and help you do what you want to do, not no-fun and make it difficult to do what you want to do; changes to computer software should therefore further the fun and helpful principal, not hinder it. With Vista, they've somehow managed to do the one thing they should have taken care not to do and thus betrayed the core principal. It boggles the mind, but that sort of thinking is so common nowadays that it's really not surprising. I was fortunate to snag XP with my new PC before it became no longer offered by major PC builders. If that had not been the case, I would literally have not bought a new PC whether I needed one or not, or I would have learned how to build a new one myself and used XP. There was simply no way that I was going to use Vista, nor will I ever upgrade to it. If it comes down to Vista or nothing, I'll choose nothing. Microsoft's attempts to dance around the reality that no one likes Vista are frankly absurd, although fairly amusing if you're able to view the whole debacle from the outside.
