Firstly, you seem to be getting two separate sets of permission confused.

Elevating permission for JSGME does no more than give *it* permission to modify/add/remove files in your Program Files folder. You have done this, and by virtue of the fact that a MODS folder was created, it has worked; JSGME is now a happy camper and is allowed to modify any file in Program Files.

HOWEVER if you subsequently try to extract a mod directly into the MODS folder, Vista's UAC will kick in again because a *different* process is attempting to modify Program Files (ie NOT JSGME - it's most likely not even open at this stage - this time it's 7-zip or whatever your extraction program is). In this case, you need to elevate the permission of your extraction program in much the same way that you elevated permission in JSGME. Or, alternatively, you can extract the mod *outside* of Program Files and drag into the MODS folder. As *you* are doing this, Vista will allow it to occur. The difference is *you* are doing it, not some system invoked tool, which doesn't appear to have the appropriate permission anyway.

Hope this is clear - let me know if not. UAC and File Virtualization can be quite confusing!

Ah, that makes sense, I'm beginning to get it. So, if I'm understanding you, by executing my decompression utility (in this case, as you rightly guessed, 7Zip) with elevated privileges, the files would actually GO where I tell them to go, rather than pretending to go there? That's logical. However, before I gave up and just threw the files in the program's folders, the last thing I tried was extracting the files to my desktop and manually dragging them into the MODS folder. It seemed to work; the mods showed up and JSGME saw them. I enabled them in the correct order and that took about as much time as it should have. But when I started the game - nothing. It was a pristine, vanilla version, completely unmodded.
Bewildering.

I have researched the issue with UAC and find controversy on both sides (imagine that). The one thing I find most interesting were some documents arguing the very fact that an MS employee says it’s not really a security tool?

Oh well the debate shall go one forever as most do but one interesting find I made was a way to elevate admin permissions without prompt, as a matter of fact there are a few interesting settings in there to play with for UAC. Of course there is a draw back that you must have Vista Business or higher I believe.

http://www.downbelow.net/sh4/uac1.jpg

This setting is interesting

http://www.downbelow.net/sh4/uac2.jpg

Some day I’m sure if its not certified it won’t install.

http://www.downbelow.net/sh4/uac3.jpg


Article Link

http://www.downbelow.net/uac_nonag.htm