So I was setting up Virtual PC on Vista RC1 to run a Dynamics CRM 3.0 image and I needed to make an entry in the Vista hosts file (same old location btw). I opened the hosts file with Notepad and made my entry. When I went to save I got the following message: ".. You don't have permission to save in this location. ..". Hm.. Ok UAC is jumping in front of saves in this location.
There are a number of good references on UAC and the user experience around it so I won't go into that but here's how I got around this one. I opened Notepad as Administrator as shown below. You can then save the file as you would normally.
So you may be thinking: I was the person/Windows user that installed Vista and I'm already an Administrator on the machine - why? Take a look at the articles I've included at the end of this post for more information on these questions. In short, by default UAC is enabled. UAC requires applications doing writes to protected file system locations to run with "elevated" privileges. Though the UAC feature can be turned off it's recommended that you leave it in place as your machine will be more secure.
Good Windows Vista UAC references:
General UAC reading
Understanding and Configuring User Account Control in Windows Vista
First Look: New Security Features in Windows Vista
And for Visual Studio 2005 and IIS7 developers here's a helpful one from Scott Guthrie. It certainly cleared some things up for me.
Using IIS7 on Vista with VS 2005
tags: Windows Vista, UAC