Help, I just got Vista!

[EvilTiki]

I just got Microsoft Vista Home Premium, and I can't start up Steam!
Every time I click on the shortcut, a little window pops up and says;

Error
Steam.exe (main exception): Unable to write to the current steam application folder.
Please move steam to a folder where you have write privileges.

how do I do this?
please help, Evil Tiki

[Zoopy]

Sounds odd, never had that problem. Try running Steam as an administrator:

right-click Steam.exe -> properties -> compatibility -> run as administrator.

[EvilTiki]

Wow, thanks man, it worked!

[Chewy]

Yeah Evil... one of the most annoying parts of Vista is the privileges feature... anytime you get that message again, basically repeat the same routine unless you want to permanently disable it.

[UnDeaD77]

Also disable User Account Control, also known as UAC. It's highly annoying.

[Acreo Aeneas]

Originally Posted by EvilTiki

Help, I just got Vista!

Oh noes! *doom da doom doom....*


Right click the Steam.exe and "Run as Administrator"

[Mosatii]

I just reverted to XP Pro from Vista Ultimate, some of the games I play took a performance hit. I can't think of any reason to use Vista over XP anyway. It was a great novelty for awhile, though.

[=Sarc=]

Originally Posted by Acreo Aeneas

Oh noes! *doom da doom doom....*


Right click the Steam.exe and "Run as Administrator"

Heh, Zoopy handled that problem with a better solution. Setting the run as admin in the compatibility options means never having to right-click and run as admin again.

[ScratchMonkey]

And while you're disabling all the security in Vista, load a CD full of viruses. You can't be too careful!

Seriously, pay attention to the error message and do what it says: Move Steam to a directory you have write privileges to, and beat on Valve to fix Steam to write settings to your profile directory, not the system-wide Program Files directory.

This is why Linux (and BSD, and Solaris) has such a good reputation for security. It's not so much that the OS is more secure, as that its users follow proper practices to keep their programs from writing in system areas.

I install all my games (including Steam) to \Games, not to \Program Files. For one thing, I hate going to the command line and typing long paths with spaces in them. And games are notorious for sloppy OS programming, so putting them somewhere outside the official OS directories protects you from this kind of stupidity.