Installing, Configuring, and Maintaining Software
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If you're used to earlier versions of the Windows operating system, Windows Vista may seem a little disorienting at first. This article series explains how to install, configure and maintain software in Vista. It is excerpted from chapter four of
Windows Vista: The Definitive Guide, written by William R. Stanek (O'Reilly, 2007; ISBN: 0596528000). Copyright © 2007 O'Reilly Media, Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission from the publisher. Available from booksellers or direct from O'Reilly Media.
Most modern software and game programs have automated setup processes, making it easy to install and run your programs. Resolving problems if automated setup fails or if a program does not run as expected is not so easy, however, which is why you need a strong understanding of how software installation works and the techniques you can use to diagnose and resolve any problems you encounter.
Software Installation: What’s Changed Compared to earlier releases of Windows, the processes of installing, configuring, and maintaining software and game programs work differently in Windows Vista. Primarily, this is because of changes to:
The way accounts are used
The way User Account Control (UAC) works
The removal of the Add/Remove Programs utility
The way application access tokens are used
The way applications write to the system locations
Unlike earlier releases of Windows, Windows Vista has only standard user accounts and administrator accounts. When you log on to Windows Vista, you use one type of account or the other, removing the gray area between these two types of accounts that was previously available through the Power Users group. In Windows Vista, the Power Users group is included only for backward compatibility, and you should use it only when you need to resolve compatibility issues.
In Windows Vista, software installation, configuration, and maintenance are processes that require elevated privileges. Because of this, only administrators can install, configure, and maintain software. As discussed in Chapter 3, elevation is a feature of UAC. Because of UAC, Windows Vista is able to detect software installation. When Windows Vista detects a software-installation-related process, it prompts for permission or consent prior to allowing you to install, configure, or maintain software on your computer.
Windows Vista does not include an Add/Remove Programs utility. Instead, it relies completely on the software and game programs themselves to provide the necessary installation features through a related Setup or Autorun program.
Most programs created for Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows 2000, and Windows XP use setup.exe programs. Programs created for Windows Vista and later versions of Windows can use autorun.exe programs, particularly if those programs use current versions of Windows installers. For simplicity’s sake, I’ll refer to both Setup and Autorun programs as Setup programs.
Windows Vista also provides new architecture guidelines for software and game programs that fundamentally change the way software access tokens are used and the way software programs write to system locations. These changes are so far-reaching that software not specifically designed to support the new architecture guidelines is considered legacy software. This means there are two general categories of software that you can use with Windows Vista:
Windows Vista-compliant applications
Legacy applications
Any software written specifically for Windows Vista’s new architecture guidelines is considered a compliant application and can be certified as compliant with Microsoft. Applications certified as compliant have the Windows Vista-compliant logo. Applications written for Windows Vista have access tokens that describe the privileges required to run and perform tasks. Windows Vista-compliant applications fall into two general categories:
Administrator user applications
If an application requires elevated privileges to run and perform tasks, it is considered an administrator user application. Administrator user applications can write to system locations of the registry and filesystem.
Standard user applications
If an application does not require elevated privileges to run and perform tasks, it is considered a standard user application. Standard user applications should write only to nonsystem locations of the registry and filesystem.
Any application written for an earlier version of Windows is considered a legacy application. Legacy applications run as standard user applications and in a special compatibility mode that provides virtualized views of file and registry locations. When a legacy application attempts to write a system location, Windows Vista gives the application a private copy of the file or registry value. Any changes are then written to the private copy, and this private copy is in turn stored in the user’s profile data. If the application attempts to read or write to this system location again, it is given the private copy from the user’s profile.
Next: Software Installation: What You Need to Know >>
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 This article is excerpted from chapter four of Windows Vista: The Definitive Guide, written by William R. Stanek (O'Reilly, 2007; ISBN: 0596528000). Check it out today at your favorite bookstore. Buy this book now.
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