Running WUFI under Windows Vista and Windows 7

Frequently asked questions
Thomas
WUFI Administrator
WUFI Administrator
Posts: 417
Joined: Sun Jun 19, 2005 10:33 pm -1100

Running WUFI under Windows Vista and Windows 7

Post by Thomas » Thu Mar 25, 2010 4:44 am -1100

WUFI also runs under Windows Vista and Windows 7.

However, please note the following:
  • Installation:

    You must have administrator privileges to install WUFI.
    If you are not logged in as administrator, the OS automatically prompts you for the administrator password before installation.
  • Organizing your projects:

    If you are always working from an administrator account or from the same user account, there is nothing further to consider.

    However, if there are one or more user accounts on your system, it’s advisable not to save your projects under the C:\Program Files\IBP-Software\... folder (assuming you installed WUFI in the default path) but in a folder with write-privileges to avoid confusion with the so-called virtual store.

    Here is a short explanation:
    Since Windows Vista, Windows wants to keep application data and user data strictly separate for security reasons. Write access to the application data area is only allowed with administrator privileges. So, when a non-administrator attempts to save a project file into the default projects folder which has been installed in the application data area:

    C:\Program Files\IBP-Software\WUFI5\Projects,

    then Windows automatically redirects the writing process to a user-specific area on disk, the “virtual store”:

    C:\Users\Username\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files\IBP-Software\WUFI5\Projects.

    This redirect is “transparent” to the user, that is, the user’s files are displayed as if they were residing in the application data area, and each write or read operation appears to access that area (so in WUFI's “Open Project”-Dialog the project is still shown under the project folder), while in reality it is being redirected. As long as each user keeps working from a single account, this creates no problem.
    However, data of different users (if they are not administrators) are redirected to different user areas, so that they cannot mutually see one another’s files, although all these files appear to be written to the same default project directory. Furthermore, if a user switches to a different account, his file access is redirected to the new account’s virtual store and his old files (residing in the old account’s virtual store) seem to have disappeared.

    The Windows Explorer works differently than the standard file open and save dialogs: If you open your project folder (in the application area) in Windows Explorer you can’t see your saved project. When you click on the “Compatibility Files”-Tab, the VirtualStore folder will be opened and you will find the project there.
  • Updating the material database:

    If you have one or more user accounts and you have user-defined materials in the material database, please see:
    http://www.wufi-forum.com/viewtopic.php?t=244