What's changed in Windows Vista

A lot of changes are visible in the look and behavior of Windows Vista, and many more changes have been made "under the hood" as well. This post will cover the most confusing changes made to Windows Vista.

Administrator accounts don't work like they did in XP

Windows Vista now enforces the security best practice of always operating as a standard user and only invoking Administrator powers when absolutely necessary. This is intended to prevent programs from modifying your system without your knowledge and to prevent accidental changes to system settings.

This policy is enforced by the operating system through UAC (User Account Control), which is also known as Admin Approval Mode.

UAC works by running all programs as if they were started by a standard user, even when you are logged in as an administrator. There are only two ways a program can be started with full administrator privileges (known as "elevating" a program):

1. Some programs will automatically ask for permission to run with administrator privileges when they are opened. These programs will be displayed with a security shield .
2. You can explicitly open a program with full administrator privileges by right-clicking it and clicking Run As Administrator.

It is important to remember that unless a program asks for administrator privileges or you explicitly start a program with administrator privileges, it will not be able to perform administrative tasks.

Some examples of administrative tasks include modifying files that you did not create, installing some types of software, installing hardware, and changing settings that affect the entire computer.

Microsoft is aware that many software products available today are not designed to operate in such a restrictive environment. Fortunately, Windows Vista detects many of these programs and tricks them into thinking that they have full access to the computer, when in fact they do not. This happens automatically in the background and requires no action on your part.

These restrictions do not apply to the built-in "Administrator" account; When using this this account, every program you open is given full administrative privileges. Because of the unrestricted nature of this account, Windows Vista only allows you to log in as the built-in administrator during an emergency. This account is disabled out of the box, and can only be used when the computer is running in safe mode.

More Information on UAC

Well-known folders have been moved or renamed

Many of the well-known folders in Windows Vista have been redesigned to be better organized and easier to use. Here are some of the more notable changes:

• "Documents and Settings" is now called "Users"
• "My" has been removed from folder names. For example, "My Documents" is now just "Documents."
• The Pictures, Music, and Videos folders are no longer inside the Documents folder, they are now located directly inside your folder

If you have enabled Show Hidden Files, you may have already noticed that there are still folders with the old names on your computer. These folders will have a transparent icon and a shortcut symbol, as shown below:

It is important to understand that these are not "real" folders. They are called junctions, and their purpose is to point programs that try to access them to the new location. They are similar in functionality to shortcuts, but look like normal folders to programs.

Because they are not real, attempting to access them will result in an "Access Denied" error.

You can use the command prompt to see where junctions are pointing to. Simply issue the "dir /a" command and it will show [in brackets] the destination of all junctions located inside the current directory.