Compatibility
This articles describes different compatibility aspects of the software, specifically operating systems, compatibility issues and different workarounds.
All of the applications on this site are developed for Microsoft Windows platform. Even though there is no official support for other platforms apart from Windows, many people have successfully used these applications on Mac and Linux platforms, using so called emulation software.
Vista and 7
Both Windows Vista and Windows 7 include so called User Account Control (UAC) which can help you prevent unauthorized changes to your computer. It works by prompting you for permission when a task requires administrative rights, such as installing software or changing settings that affect other users.
UAC presents a problem for software which was designed in the old days of Windows 9x series of operating systems, which did not include any sophisticated user account control features such as UAC. The most common installation path for software in Windows is Program Files directory, located in path "C:\Program Files" or similar. UAC treats this location as a system folder, hence, forbids normal users from writing to this folder. UAC enforces the requirement for administrative privileges in order to make modifications to the content of this folder.
In the old days, it was a common practice for software to store configuration data and other documents in the installation directory of the application, making everything compact, isolated and self-contained. This practice no longer works in the recent operating systems (such as Vista and 7), because applications are getting blocked out of the installation folder where they normally store vital for the application data.
Another place where UAC will cause problems is the registry, where most of locations are now protected from modifications. Applications have to write to the registry in order to use some of the functionality, for example: automatically start application on login.
Workarounds for UAC issues
| Title | Description |
|---|---|
| Turn off UAC | Open Control Panel and find User Accounts controls, where you can easily turn off User Account Control. Although it helps eliminate the issues, but it comes at a cost of lowered down security. |
| Run as Administrator | When launching applications, user can specify to run it with administrative privileges. Just right-click on the application icon and select "Run as administrator". |
| Custom installation path | Instead of installing application into the default and problematic "Program Files" directory, choose a custom path which is not shared by any system applications. For example "C:\Tools\", or even "D:\Programs\" on a another drive if available, and so on. |