Hello,
> 1. Its feature is only for "Standard Usrs" on Vista.
This is incorrect. Virtualization is enabled for all users as long as UAC is
turned on. Remember, with UAC turned on, programs that are ran from inside
of an Administrator account actually run as a "standard user", unless they
ask for administrator privileges through a consent dialog ("Windows needs
your permission to continue").
Since Virtualization is designed to "fix" programs that are not designed for
Vista, these types of programs will never ask for administrator permission
(sine they would have to have been designed for Vista to do so), so they
will never automatically receive admin power - they will always run as a
standard user - and this is why Virtualization will kick in regardless of
the type of user.
> 2. If a standard user downloads/installs a program into C:ProgramFiles or
> C:Windows,it will be redirected to C:users..."VirtualStore"...
If any program that does not have administrator power and was not designed
for Vista attempts to write or change certain folder locations and/or
registry settings that are "off-limits" to that program, such as Program
Files, Windows, and HKEY_LOCAL_USERS, and UAC is turned on, Virtualization
will make the program think that the operation was successful, while Windows
silently redirects the changes to the user-specific Virtual Store. That
program, when accessing that location again, will see the "virtualized" data
instead of the original data, which has not been changed.
> However, I can't make out a real reason why such a complicated feature is
> implemented on Vista..What on the hell is good for a user?
This feature is enabled to allow program that do not work correctly without
administrator privileges to work inside of Windows Vista, where they will
never have admin privileges, even if they are run by an administrator.
Take, for example, a common action of some install programs that unzip their
files to c:\ before running the setup program. This is incorrect, as they
are supposed to unzip temporary files into the user-specific temporary
folder; however, in Windows XP, as long as the user was an administrator
this would work fine, even though it is incorrect.
In Windows Vista, these types of programs should fail, even when the user is
an administrator, because they do not ask for admin privileges, and will be
denied write access to c:\.
To work around such programs, Virtualization moves these files
behind-the-scenes to the user's profile directory. The program is not
actually modifying files on drive c:\, it is actually writing to the user's
profile directory, but the programs THINKS that it is actually writing to
drive c:\.
In this way, programs that misbehave by accessing off-limits folders can
still work, without violating the integrity and security of the operating
system.
> Maybe,my recognition is wrong...so please find a fault in my recognitons
> 1-2
> and point out this feature's merit??
>
> Thanks you for in advance.
--
- JB
Windows Vista Support Faq
http://www.jimmah.com/vista/
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