tim_p

Thanks for that hint, houtex. It's sadly believable that a substring in the exe name is Vista's signal to force elevated privileges. I'll give that a try on one of the machines. I can leave the file with default Admin-only permission so that we should be aware (due to file write errors) the next time there's a real update for it.

It's not a button, Yosef, and my description does not seem to have been clear enough. Vista wanted to run CoH as an administrator without me asking for that.

That's not ok for software in general. In the case for my kids, they don't even know Admin credentials for their computers, and I was not about to hand that over for them to try a game.

This seems to provide a good fix:
http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/wi...windows/?p=635

I followed these general steps, except I set the "Operating System Modes" to "None", so there is no XP compatibility override. Setting the RunAsInvoker flag does just what I wanted - COHUpdater.exe will run without a prompt for Admin credentials and, even better, will run with my limited account credentials.

This would probably cause problems when patches need to be downloaded and installed. I will modify NTFS permissions on the COH folder so that should not be an issue, but it may also work to just shut down when that error arises and relaunch using the Run As Administrator option.

My kids & I are running Vista on our computers. Is there no alternative to launching CoH with Administrator credentials? I understand there is a need to install updates from time to time, but there are alternatives like only using Admin credentials at those times, or granting write/modify permissions to the game install folder to specific non-Admin users.

Like other self-updating software, this one should not need total control of the computer for its normal use. In our case, the kids do not know Admin credentials for their computers.

I can configure the folder security so that CoH should be able to do everything it needs, but cohupdater.exe somehow requires Admin credentials. It's not the standard checkbox property to "Run As Administrator" either, that's unchecked.

Has anyone else gotten CoH to run on Vista with "least" privileges?