I just upgraded from XP to Vista Ultimate. Turned off User Access Control. Turned off Protected Mode.
I can't save any files at all.
If I right-click anything in Firefox and select Save As, it throws an error saying the 'file picker terminated unexpectedly'. Then I have to kill the Firefox process via Task Manager. It will not respond to any further mouse clicks or keyboard commands.
If I try it in Internet Explorer, IE7 simply closes itself.
I could not even download Winamp to install it. When I selected the Save button from the file download window, IE 7 closed itself, taking all three open IE windows with it.
When I tried to save an image file in Paint Shop Pro (I made a background image), it closed itself also.
I cannot even save a f*cking text file in Notepad. It crashed too, with the enlightening message 'Please Close Notepad'.
So what, the only way Microsoft can secure their crappy OS is to deny all access to its precious file system? I suppose if they close all possible avenues of corruption by killing all file I/O, they might almost make Windows safe enough to be used by consumer-level users. But for the rest of us, it's nothing but infuriating.
So, now I must take a deep breath, stop myself from throwing this damned computer down the steps out back, and ask what must be the most unbelievable question I've ever had to ask in my 20 years of computing: What am I supposed to do with this operating system to make it work normally, so I can like, you know, maybe SAVE A BINARY COMPUTER FILE TO THE HARD DISK?
1. Install all the latest windows updates
2. if you are accessing internet via an ethernet cable, boot the system under safemode with networking and try to download any file from there
3. try creating a new user account with administratve previlige, and check there for the problem