How do I convince Windows Vista that I am the administrator? It seems to enjoy locking me out of programs and files. I can go into each individual file and give myself access to the file in the security setting, but this becomes a major hassle in full programs with many files.

I currently cannot upgrade Firefox because my computer says I don't have administrator privileges. I cant even look at any photos in my RX8 folder unless I give myself access individually for each photo. Changing the security settings for the actual folder seems to have absolutely no effect to the files inside.

This is pretty lame. That is all.

uhm.. i can tell you how.. hang on while i make a few screenshots.

Ok.. here goes..
if this doesn't work, you may need to log out and log back in as the administrator account and then proceed.

EDIT: Note that the screenshots are out of order.. the last shot is the third shot and the third shot is the last shot.

kristina = the great.

ok.. so there's also an automated "show me how to do it tool" in vista.. i dont remember where it is cuz i'm too awesome to use it.. but.. it's there ;)

NoTears please don't take this the wrong way but dump Vista. Go back to XP until they work out the bugs for a year or so.
Vista is a PITA!!!!

Thanks. That kinda worked. It wouldn't let me do it directly with my login, so I had to create an administrator profile to make myself the administrator. I hate Vista so much.

NoTears please don't take this the wrong way but dump Vista. Go back to XP until they work out the bugs for a year or so.
Vista is a PITA!!!!

I agree 100%

you guys make me sad..
vista for the win.. i actually really like it, but then i've been running it since beta so i learned the silliness early on..
they did do some things that i just don't agree with and windows defender is nothing short of obnoxious (but you can turn it off), but as a whole, the OS is a big improvement, even if windows aero does cause it to use more power.

you guys make me sad..
vista for the win.. i actually really like it, but then i've been running it since beta so i learned the silliness early on..
they did do some things that i just don't agree with and windows defender is nothing short of obnoxious (but you can turn it off), but as a whole, the OS is a big improvement, even if windows aero does cause it to use more power.

You and me both brotha. Vista is much better than XP SP2 once you get all the goofy crap turned off.

You and me both brotha. Vista is much better than XP SP2 once you get all the goofy crap turned off.

No....it's not. Been using it since the first beta and it's still not ready for prime time. The only reason I even have a copy in my home is because I need to know it for work. As it stands Vista will never be on any PC in my house for anything but work.

My wife's PC died a little while ago and I didn't even bother with Windows when I got her a new one. She's been running Ubuntu and couldn't be happier. If I didn't use my PC for gaming, I'd be on Ubuntu, too. But I do, so I'm staying with XP for as long as I can.

Please then, lets hear what is wrong with it. and in what capacity do you use it? for gaming? No surprise that you don't like it for that Vista is RAM intensive just like the video games. But memory is cheap these days.

This problem is pretty common... You may put yourself in as the administrator but vista says your not. You have to first activate the administrator account (yes microsoft disabled and hid the TRUE administrator account) and then log in as that an establish any rights you want. To unhide and enable the administrator account run the following command inside the Command prompt

Net user administrator activate:yes

This will activate the account, so just log off and log on as the admin and give yourself permissions over whatever you want.

Ugh, Vista. I tried using it quite a few times on a friend's computer and it seemed like something I'll never get used to. I hated using it more every single time I tried it.

I just bought another laptop earlier this week that came with Vista. So far the only issue I've had is with my current version of McAfee but was easily resolved with downloading the Vista versions. No probs with administrative access. Got Linux on my desktop,XP on my notebook and Vista on my laptop. :Eyecrazy:

Kind of frustrating at times bouncing around between the three. Only time will tell if I keep Vista or not.

Uninstall Vista and reinstall XP, I always wait until the first SP before switching.

No....it's not. Been using it since the first beta and it's still not ready for prime time.

I totally disagree with you here. The only thing not ready for prime time about vista is the drivers provided by many manufacturers, especially Nvidia. The operating system gets blamed for many of the issues caused by manufacturers which has been the case for a long time.

Microsoft removed HAL from vista specifically for that purpose. What caused more crashes than anything in the past? Allowing software to talk directly to the hardware via HAL rather than going through the kernel. The unfortunate result is that many of the OEMs and manufacturers need to re-write and re-think their drivers as they can no longer talk directly to their hardware. So any driver based off of HAL or any software based off of HAL (HAL has been around since the advent of the sound card if not longer) is trash. Manufacturers are left writing drivers that talk to the Kernel to talk to their hardware and the optimization that years of talking to HAL brought, is gone and will have to be re-discovered.

Microsoft has done a good job supplying default drivers for most devices that work just fine. Sure, they aren't as optimized as a manufacturer's own driver, but they're stable and relatively bug free. I saw this firsthand when I installed Nvidia's motherboard drivers on my vista X64 box and what a nightmare that brought. The standard MS drivers worked fine, but once I installed those Nvidia drivers, my RAID array slowed down a ton and my system became unstable. I reformatted and reinstalled vista w/o them and I haven't had an issue since.

So.. if you've got vista and want my advice, here it is:
Install the OS and leave the default drivers in place for everything EXCEPT the following:
Video Cards (ATI drivers are very robust and getting faster for vista. I cannot say the same for NVidia and it's disappointing to see them so far behind on this one)
Sound Cards (Creative has drivers out for their entire line of cards and they're stable. W/O HAL though, any card pre-X-FI is doing all of it's work in software so it's quite useless. The X-FI can communicate via ALChemy in hardware so it's still capable of using hardware optimization.)
Any device that vista doesn't recognize or doesn't support the features of:
My logitech harmony remote and G15 keybords are good examples.
I don't bother installing my motherboard drivers or camera drivers as Vista can operate both of them with all of their features better than the current manufacturer drivers.

Then I recommend getting a 1 gig or larger flash drive and plugging it in for use with readyboost. Readyboost does offer an improvement which is small at the high end, but very noticeable when it comes to loading applications you use frequently. Vista's application load time is leaps and bounds ahead of XP once the application has been loaded a few times.

So yea.. that's my opinion.
ajax

I totally disagree with you here. The only thing not ready for prime time about vista is the drivers provided by many manufacturers, especially Nvidia. The operating system gets blamed for many of the issues caused by manufacturers which has been the case for a long time.

Microsoft removed HAL from vista specifically for that purpose. What caused more crashes than anything in the past? Allowing software to talk directly to the hardware via HAL rather than going through the kernel. The unfortunate result is that many of the OEMs and manufacturers need to re-write and re-think their drivers as they can no longer talk directly to their hardware. So any driver based off of HAL or any software based off of HAL (HAL has been around since the advent of the sound card if not longer) is trash. Manufacturers are left writing drivers that talk to the Kernel to talk to their hardware and the optimization that years of talking to HAL brought, is gone and will have to be re-discovered.

Microsoft has done a good job supplying default drivers for most devices that work just fine. Sure, they aren't as optimized as a manufacturer's own driver, but they're stable and relatively bug free. I saw this firsthand when I installed Nvidia's motherboard drivers on my vista X64 box and what a nightmare that brought. The standard MS drivers worked fine, but once I installed those Nvidia drivers, my RAID array slowed down a ton and my system became unstable. I reformatted and reinstalled vista w/o them and I haven't had an issue since.

So.. if you've got vista and want my advice, here it is:
Install the OS and leave the default drivers in place for everything EXCEPT the following:
Video Cards (ATI drivers are very robust and getting faster for vista. I cannot say the same for NVidia and it's disappointing to see them so far behind on this one)
Sound Cards (Creative has drivers out for their entire line of cards and they're stable. W/O HAL though, any card pre-X-FI is doing all of it's work in software so it's quite useless. The X-FI can communicate via ALChemy in hardware so it's still capable of using hardware optimization.)
Any device that vista doesn't recognize or doesn't support the features of:
My logitech harmony remote and G15 keybords are good examples.
I don't bother installing my motherboard drivers or camera drivers as Vista can operate both of them with all of their features better than the current manufacturer drivers.

Then I recommend getting a 1 gig or larger flash drive and plugging it in for use with readyboost. Readyboost does offer an improvement which is small at the high end, but very noticeable when it comes to loading applications you use frequently. Vista's application load time is leaps and bounds ahead of XP once the application has been loaded a few times.

So yea.. that's my opinion.
ajax

Very well said. Alot of people bash vista but I have grown to like it. Now it does have alot of little things that you have to learn over again, but like anything once you learn it your good to go.

once the service pack is out, then I'll get it. I want to, but I think waiting is a good thing. I'm a gamer, so I already run 3gig of RAM. when it comes time to switch, I'll increase it to 4gigs.

-Steakboy