Macezek
Warlord
I've just bought a laptop with Vista (which is a pain) and am having similar troubles to you all. I've finally got CivAssist working by running it as Administartor etc. However there's another problem. CivAssist watches for saves in the usual place. But Vista with its wonders of file virtualization actually redirects the saves to another place under your account settings. And CivAssist doesn't seem to detect the new saves to pop up the alerts etc.
VERY ANNOYING!
Well, CivAssist II was made for XP, so you can't blame Vista for trying to improve security. Software written since Vista was released recognizes file virtualization, so if CivAssist II is not updated, don't put the blame on the OS.
User Access Control was included for a reason, to prevent people who don't know what they're doing from messing up their computers, as well as improving internet and file security. People who do know what they're doing (eg. admins) can get around the whole thing by disabling UAC. If you go back a few pages, this comes up pretty frequently. As good an idea as it is, UAC does get annoying after a while. Thank Microsoft for at least giving us the option to turn it off.
I believe that file virtualization works only for files in C:\Windows and C:\Program Files and your C:\Users directories. It prevents possible viruses and worms from going after the real files by creating virtual records of the files which can be reset if your system gets attacked. If you install your games to a folder such as C:\Games , file virtualization won't touch the folder and you don't have to disable UAC if you don't want to. Also, your computer is more organized because all of your games are installed to one folder in the C:\ drive.
By the way, I run a laptop with Vista Ultimate, and I would take it over XP any day.