I wouldn't recommend telling the average user to go through this process though. The purpose of the UAC is to attempt to close the holes that exist in the OS. The new Mac operating system has something similar, which I also have. The idea is to prevent a program that has latched itself unto something you've downloaded or installed on your machine from being able to run unattended.

If you know how you use your machine and the risks entailed in disabling system features, then that's fine. I don't think it's a good idea to tell everybody to do this.

I have a full development machine working fine with my own account and UAC enabled. When I say development, I mean software development. I'll keep this thread because it has useful information and if I do run into trouble, then it will be something to look at, but I don't think it's necessary. It will be interesting to see how my husband fares when he converts his machine because he does a lot more programming than me...

The UAC did not affect my dev work because none of my dev folders are in the default Windows folders. Now that I have switched to the Administrator account, Notepad++ is finally working fully. I am going to reinstall 7-zip as well, but since all of the icons finally changed appropriately without my doing anything extra, I figure that it is now working properly as well. PyFFI is back in the default location now too.

I agree with not telling the average user about this, as it completely gets rid of the security feature. Security-wise, I only have Microsoft Security Essentials running. I may add Spybot S&D later, though...

Ok, that's good. Too bad you had to go through all that though. I haven't used PyFFI too much yet, so I'll have to see what happens. Have had no problems with Wrye, the CS, TES4Edit or Nifskope though... Blender seems to run ok, but I don't know how to use Blender, so that doesn't say much

Very weird...