Vista virtual store file

Note: The current version of the program, PMA Small Business ServiceCenter, places its database in a different location, eliminating the problems detailed below. So, What's the Big Deal? To provide compatibility with "older" programs that elect to write to the Program Files folder and to separate the "system environment" from the "user environment", Microsoft created something called a "Virtual Store". The Virtual Store is a location outside the protected Program Files folder where Microsoft creates copies of files a given program needs to write to and then uses those copies rather than the original files.

Note that the operative term in respect to where data is written and saved is "regularly". That complicates the discussion because you have no way of knowing without directly checking the files or databases in question.

Unfortunately, Microsoft neglects to tell people all this. The information is available, you just have to search it out when problems occur. The implications can be but are not necessarily limited to the possibility that:. You have to go into the Virtual Store and delete the files manually. Windows Vista still uses the Program Files folder for program installations but does not allow you to access data files in those folders. Our Vista ready release of PayWindow installs the files in the Documents folder on Vista and the My Documents folder under older releases of Windows in keeping with the Windows Vista guidelines.

This is where the problems come into play. For legacy users as described above, when you run PayWindow and access the data files in the program folder, Vista makes a copy of the data files and moves them into a Vista "VirtualStore" folder and then uses that copy and never uses your original file.

So from that point on, we assumed that our data was being backed up and things were OK. But in fact, what was happening is that PayWindow would just keep making backups of the "original" untouched data files while leaving the one we are actually using untouched. In short, not making any backups of our data files from the day that you upgraded your computer to Vista. This also is the case if you moved files from an old computer to a new Vista computer in most cases as well.

To fix this you must determine if you have your data files in the new Windows Vista folder where you are OK, or in the Program Files folder where you then have this problem. Also if you turn UAC completely off and move the file back it should work for the same reason. In the user data area in Vista is a virtual store. What have I done or not done to cause it to put everything into the Virtual Store????

Hope to goodness you can help, I am slowly going mad with this B. Vista security madness. It depends on the way of deployment. I assume you deploy the application to a system folder, such as Program Files? If so, it is not best practise to store the data their due to security issues.

System folders under Vista require administrative rights for each operation, including data storage and such. In other words: what Vista does is enforce some security issues and Microsoft's best practice methodology.

As a developer, you should stick by it and do not store the mdb file in your StartupPath.