What to do with a new Vista PC

[I Am Herenow]

Hello everyone!

Thanks!

[sapi]

You don't have to, and shouldn't, touch anything

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

If you must mess around with the security settings, and you have one of the 'better' versions, launch secpol.msc from the start menu (I think it's only there in Vista Ultimate, Business, and Enterprise), go to local policies > security options and you can tweak UAC there.

It's not a good idea to do what I did and turn it off

[Bijo]

What to do with a new Vista PC

You deinstall Vista and get XP

[I Am Herenow]

^ Lol, thanks(!)

[Lemur]

I agree with Sapi that you should be very cautious about messing with security policies. I also agree with Bijo that an upgrade to Windows XP would be advisable for any gamer. Even in DX9 mode, Vista has been shown to impose a 10%-15% drop in framerates. Not really justifiable, in my opinion.

If you're determined to stick with Vista, AnandTech has a good FAQ on tweaking it here. Softpedia has a 12-step program to de-hog Vista here.

Here's a guide to tweaking Vista for games.

[I Am Herenow]

Cheers!

[Husar]

You have to resist the evil temptation and get XP, using Vista is supporting dictators and terrorists.
That said, I turned the UAC off but then Whacker says my PC is as open as a barn door(a pretty well-running barn door though, I like to think the hackers keep it running because it's important to them somehow ).
What it does is when you copy files into your program files folder, it copies them elsewhere but shows them in the program files folder but your game or other program won't find them there as they aren't really there. You may also not be allowed to edit any files there etc. It should work fine until you start modding games, changing .ini files etc. and I'm obviously too much of a noob to tell you how to do that without turning the whole thing off. *runs into corner in unimaginable shame*

[Bijo]

Yes, yes, run little rabbit, run... but the hunting has just begun.

[Blodrast]

What to do with a new Vista PC

Ooh, ooh, I can help with this one!

I'm soon going to get a new PC with Vista and have heard various rumours floating about of additional security, loopholes in security, security stopping normal programs working, security installing files in strange places and all sorts of other crazy things.

Basically, could someone post a nice, easy-to-follow set of instructions for when I get my PC as to what to do to let me work normally (i.e. enable Program Files, for example, and what dangers this might present), and which security features are actually quite useful and should be enabled?

You need to get the Ultimate Tools for Vista.

You asked for a nice, easy-to-follow set of instructions that will let you work normally ?
Look no further! Ask and ye shall receive!
Here is the nice, easy-to-follow set of instructions that will allow you to get the most out of your Vista experience.

1. Go to the Ultimate Tools for Vista site here.
(Ooops, that site seems to be down for now, you can use an alternate one: here).
2. Choose your favourite flavour of the Ultimate Tools for Vista.
3. Download, burn on a CD.
4. Install.
5. Enjoy!

I personally guarantee that after this nice, easy-to-follow set of instructions, you will never have any problems with your Vista PC again!




Sorry, I couldn't resist.

[caravel]

IPsec security policies are nothing new and not M$ specific, but is turned off in XP and 2k by default.

The UAC seems like a very fragile method of limiting damage a user can do to their own system. UNIX/Linux has always been better at this and probably always will be.

[sapi]

I agree with Sapi that you should be very cautious about messing with security policies. I also agree with Bijo that an upgrade to Windows XP would be advisable for any gamer. Even in DX9 mode, Vista has been shown to impose a 10%-15% drop in framerates. Not really justifiable, in my opinion.

Really? That's news to me, and I've been using said resource-hog for months

I'll concede that Vista does constitute a performance hit in synthetic benchmarks, but I haven't seen any real-world difference in games (outside the world of the source engine, which, as I've said before, has taken a huge hit for some reason).

You have to resist the evil temptation and get XP, using Vista is supporting dictators and terrorists.
That said, I turned the UAC off but then Whacker says my PC is as open as a barn door(a pretty well-running barn door though, I like to think the hackers keep it running because it's important to them somehow ).
What it does is when you copy files into your program files folder, it copies them elsewhere but shows them in the program files folder but your game or other program won't find them there as they aren't really there.

It doesn't actually show them there to the user; they're stored in users/[user]/appdata/local/virtualstore/ and can be edited as per usual. UAC simply redirects read/write requests for the game to there, and from the program's perspective, there's no real difference.

You may also not be allowed to edit any files there etc. It should work fine until you start modding games, changing .ini files etc. and I'm obviously too much of a noob to tell you how to do that without turning the whole thing off. *runs into corner in unimaginable shame*

That can be changed under secpol.msc > local policies > security options > User Account Control: Virtualiz file and registry write failures to per-user locations

Ooh, ooh, I can help with this one!

You need to get the Ultimate Tools for Vista.

You asked for a nice, easy-to-follow set of instructions that will let you work normally ?
Look no further! Ask and ye shall receive!
Here is the nice, easy-to-follow set of instructions that will allow you to get the most out of your Vista experience.

1. Go to the Ultimate Tools for Vista site here.
(Ooops, that site seems to be down for now, you can use an alternate one: here).
2. Choose your favourite flavour of the Ultimate Tools for Vista.
3. Download, burn on a CD.
4. Install.
5. Enjoy!

I personally guarantee that after this nice, easy-to-follow set of instructions, you will never have any problems with your Vista PC again!

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

That program disabled all my games

[Husar]

It doesn't actually show them there to the user; they're stored in users/[user]/appdata/local/virtualstore/ and can be edited as per usual. UAC simply redirects read/write requests for the game to there, and from the program's perspective, there's no real difference.

Ehh, no, I made the experience myself.
I had this program that needed a certain file telling it I bought the program, I put the file into the folder and Vista showed it to be in the folder, sounds about right, doesn't it?
Yeah, but the program was still running in demo mode, I restarted etc, checked back, the file was still in the correct folder, it wasn't empty, it was apparently right where the program wanted it but the program ran in demo mode which it shouldn't when the file is where it looks for it. So I started to google and found out about this, turned UAC off, copied the file to the folder again and voila, everything worked fine as it should.

The devs of the program in question circumvented the problem now by setting the standerd installation path to something else than the standard windows program files folder because that's the only one where this protection applies, you could easily circumvent it yourself by installing your modded games into a different folder.

[Lemur]

And I do want to use Vista, as there aren't going to be any XP-only games in future, after all.

You're going to base your choice of OS on Shadowrun and Halo 2? Even though there are easily available workarounds to run them on XP?

Nobody but Microsoft is going to be releasing Vista-exclusive titles. Why would anybody else bother? Adoption rate is so low, and the number of people who have DX10 software and DX10 hardware is vanishingly small. No publisher in his or her right mind is gonna cut off 90% of the market just to be forward-thinking.

Will the situation be different in three years? Heck yeah. But maybe not as different as all that. I have a feeling that Microsoft's fumble of Vista is going to mean DX9-compatible titles for a long time.

[macsen rufus]

Hmm, I'm surprised no one suggested the obvious....

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

... it involves a sack, some cement, and a deep, deep river

[I Am Herenow]

Er, right, so if I install games into some local user folder, everything should be fine?

[sapi]

Ehh, no, I made the experience myself.
I had this program that needed a certain file telling it I bought the program, I put the file into the folder and Vista showed it to be in the folder, sounds about right, doesn't it?
Yeah, but the program was still running in demo mode, I restarted etc, checked back, the file was still in the correct folder, it wasn't empty, it was apparently right where the program wanted it but the program ran in demo mode which it shouldn't when the file is where it looks for it. So I started to google and found out about this, turned UAC off, copied the file to the folder again and voila, everything worked fine as it should.

Sorry mate, read my post again: Vista redirects both write failures, and read failures, to virtualstore - if you put the file in program files, you're putting it in a location that the program is not allowed to even look at. You need to stick with the Vista data conventions (ie, all user files go in the user directory) and put any new files in virtualstore yourself.

The devs of the program in question circumvented the problem now by setting the standerd installation path to something else than the standard windows program files folder because that's the only one where this protection applies, you could easily circumvent it yourself by installing your modded games into a different folder.

Talk about going out of their way to circumvent security

[Xiahou]

Really? That's news to me, and I've been using said resource-hog for months

Here is a series of tests using a battery of different games on XP and Vista using two different video cards. With only one exception (WoW on Vista w/8800GTS) all games ran slower on Vista. In some games the difference was slight, in others it was quite astonishing (see Need for Speed), but they all tested slower with only the above mentioned exception.

[I Am Herenow]

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