If you use Windows Vista and are like me, you have already turned off those annoying prompts generated by User Account Control (UAC). But can you really just turn it off?

Well, it turns out that you can't. I went to install Adobe Acrobat Reader 8.0, which is Vista compatible. After downloading the file I set about installing it, only to be informed that "The Temp folder is on a drive that is full or is inaccessible."

Some googling turned up this Tech Note on Adobes site. According to this note "On Vista, with User Account Control disabled, there is no write and execute access to the %TEMP% folder". Now isnt that amazing? Microsoft actually turns off access to the TEMP folder if you dont want to use its lousy UAC! I can't believe it!

There are some extremely annoying time consuming work arounds that are detailed in the Tech Note, which entail interrupting the installation half way through, copying files to another location, then running from there... The easist fix is to turn on UAC, reboot (required), run the install, turn off UAC, reboot (required) and there you go!

So thanks Microsoft for adding UAC and then crippling the machine when you turn it off. Very thoughtful.