FSX Vista users UAC on or off?

[Midnight Music 252]

As I am getting ready for my new machine to be delivered I want some advice from FSX users running with Vista. I've read several pros and cons about having UAC on or off. What do you FSX users that run with Vista think? Any suggestions or tips will be appreciated.Lee

[Reciprocity 0]

Lee,I just built a new computer for FSX. Vista Ultimate with Core i7 965 Processor and Tri Channel 6GB DDR3 Memory.To be honest, I couldn't get all my addons to work correctly until I turned UAC off. It was the best thing I did.Now, thats just my experience with it. I'm sure if you ask around more you'll probably get 10 different opinions.Good Luck!Steve

[Midnight Music 252]

Administrators, sorry for the double post. See below. Yes UAC off and Windows Defender disabled seems to be the ticket. Nick's Tips advises against turning UAC off, but it seems the better way to go and use 3rd party anti-virus and so forth.Lee

[meshman 109]

Don't have Vista, don't plan on getting Vista. But the UAC is there to help protect you from yourself. Most of the millions of problems I have seen is because people do not install FSX or FS9 or whatever in some location other than the default \Program Files or whatever the other one is, \Program Files (x86)? Installing it some place outside of these "protected" areas cuts down on so many of the difficulties that UAC brings.Good luck!

[Guest Aviator4life]

Lee,I run a dual boot system with my FSX installation on my 64bit Vista Ultimate OS. One of the first things I did was create a new directory on my Vista hard drive which I call "MyVistaGames".I install all of my software/programs in that directory (C:\MyVistaGames). I leave my UAC on for the benefits that it does provide (although that, as has been said, is debatable). The only thing you have to remember is that you must select this directory for your installations, and also remember to point any patches/updates at the correct directory before installing them (rather than just using the default directories suggested by the installation applications).Do this with Vista and then enjoy yourself with no worries, you have the best of both worlds.Best Regards,Dave :(

[JRMurray 214]

I had just bought a new computer in January; of course, it came with Vista (64-bit), and I was new to the vagaries of Microsoft's latest OS. I found out about UAC and the problems associated with installing FSX to the default directory after I had gone and installed FSX, Acceleration, WOAI aircraft, payware and freeware aircraft, scenery, sundary add-ons, and so on. It had occurred to me to wipe everything and start again, this time installing to a different directory, but ... I had just put in a lot of work and lots and lots of time getting my new computer up to speed. In the end, I found out about turning UAC off. Since doing so, I haven't had any problems with installations to FSX, and since I have an anti-virus program that is updated regularly, I haven't had any problems of that nature, either.Of course, YMMV.

[Illegitimi non carborundum 4]

LeeIf you don't want to turn UAC off you coluld always use this freebie: The Norton User Account Control tool from http://www.nortonlabs.com/inthelab/uac.php.It seems to work very well with no real issues.RegardsPeterH

[Midnight Music 252]

That's really interesting Peter. Though it seems that most Vista-FSX users turn UAC off, there are articles on the net by techies suggesting to keep UAC on. This might be a happy compromise.Lee

[guy 24]

I use FSX with Vista32. You don't need at all to turn UAC off.It is sufficient to change the permissions of the FSX folder (or other folders you use):How to change Permissions: Right-click the file or folder and select Properties. Click on the Security tab. Click Advanced in the lower right. In the Advanced Security Settings window that pops up, click on the Owner tab. Click Edit. Click Other users or groups. Click Advanced in the lower left corner. Click Find Now. Scroll through the results and double-click on your current user account. Click OK to all of the remaining windows except the first Properties window. Select your user account from the list up top and click Edit. Select your user account from the list up top again and then in the pane below, check Full control under Allow. You will get a security warning, click Yes. look here: http://www.dreamfleet2000.com/Previews/181/vista_181.htmlThat's what I did. It works.Guy

[OldMaintChief 7]

I have FSX installed in C:\GAMES not PROGRAM FILES and with UAC on. This has caused no problems. SP1 fixed all the Vista problems just as SP2 did for XP. Win7 I believe will give you the choice of doing away with annoying pop up boxes. My next machine will have Win7 64 bit.DaveSystem:Dell XPS 720 H2CIntel Quad Core Extreme QX6800 2.93 @ 3.73GHz4GB (2x2GB) Corsair Dominator EPP 8500C5D FSB 800MHz @ 1066MHz2x160GB WD SATA Raptors, Sound Blaster X-FiNvidia 2x8800GTX 768MB SLI, Dell 2407WFP PanelXP driver: 169.21, Vista driver: 169.25Logitech Z680 5.1 Speakers, G5 Mouse, Saitek X52WinXP Media Edition SP3 on C: (SATA 0) w/ Internet/AV/Office/FS9/Falcon4 AFVista SP1 on D: (SATA 1) (Dual Boot) w/FSX3DMark06: 17,018/6992/7123/5667

[Guest byoungblood]

If you know what you are doing with your computer, turn UAC off. It has been proven to cause issues when installing some applications (really not the fault of UAC, but the developers not coding for it, but I digress..) and it is just annoying as hell if you are a power user and are regularly making changes to the OS or applications. If Microsoft would move to a time based system like what is found in some Linux distros (you provide your credentials, do whatever you need to do, and it times out after 15 minutes of inactivity) then it wouldn't be so bad and I'd probably leave it alone.

[Guest ziporama]

We lived without UAC for years, we probably paid for it many times over, yet that feature has been the single most frustrating aspect of Vista for me, and the very first feature to be disabled on my computer with extreme prejudice. In fact, I spent my first week making it behave like XP, which it does quite well, except 30% faster on my hardware.There are risks involved if you do this and if you ask me, UAC is an invention of corporate legal, well, at least, an attempt at shifting the blame when a security problem occurs to the customer rather than the manufacturer. My perception of course, not representing anyone or any party in any way, implied or assumed, but hey, I digress. What any good dev house will do is politely listen to legal and marketing, then put in all the backdoors to turn the thing off, not willingly of course. Such is the way of corporate development. Oh, try to hide it by not making it readily visible as to how easy in fact it is to turn it off, that would be too blatant.Life is quite tolerable with UAC off.This said, if you've never used Windows before, probably a good idea to keep it on for a bit.It's also a good idea to do regular backups, have a good hardware firewall, a good antivirus/antispyware solution with a current subcription, and refrain from installing software you get in the e-mails that promise a better life.Etienne

[Midnight Music 252]

After reading everyone's posts, I'm going with UAC off. It makes the most sense. I run AVG anti-virus and Spyhunter and I do my own defrags with Distrix and I regularly check for updates. I think I'm sophisticated enough to do it all myself. I think if you are new to the computer world, UAC and all the other bells and whistles Vista brings would probably be a good idea to protect you. I can understand why they did it. However since I am getting one of the new super fast i7 machines with the latest Nvidia card I want to see if I can beat FSX into submission....ha, ha ,ah, good luck right? :( Anyway, a real streamlined rig will help.Lee