Vista - Vista 'deciding' a program needs to be run as administrator

Hi, I'm using Vista Home Premium, and up until now everything's been going
fine. Today I decided to install an add-on for firefox, which worked fine,
but when I closed firefox Vista popped up a dialog suggesting that something
may not have worked correctly, and asking if I would like to try running
firefox with administrator priveleges. Thinking that this would be one-off,
perhaps to complete installation of the addon, I pressed yes. Now every time
I run firefox I get the UAC 'Continue' screen. I've looked in compatibility
settings, and nothing's checked.
I did a little experimentation and found that if i renamed or moved
firefox.exe, this no longer happaned. In fact, if i replace firefox.exe with
another completely unrelated executable (say notepad.exe), vista will run it
as administrator, ie. Any file called C:\program files\mozilla
firefox\firefox.exe now requires administrator priveleges to execute. How
can I resolve this issue?
A web search returns one forum posting with the exact same problem, on the
MSDN forums, and these guys dont seem to solve the problem either:

http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=302717

And another thing: I initially thought "well, since I spent so much on vista
I may as well use the professional support", but on going to
support.microsoft.com and following the instructions, I'm told that I
entered my product ID in an incorrect format, even though I did not. It even
says this when I allow the ActiveX control to submit my ID for me.

Thanks in advance for any ideas.

Hello David,
One simple solution would be to completley uninstall firefox and just
reinstall the software.

"david" wrote:

> Hi, I'm using Vista Home Premium, and up until now everything's been going
> fine. Today I decided to install an add-on for firefox, which worked fine,
> but when I closed firefox Vista popped up a dialog suggesting that something
> may not have worked correctly, and asking if I would like to try running
> firefox with administrator priveleges. Thinking that this would be one-off,
> perhaps to complete installation of the addon, I pressed yes. Now every time
> I run firefox I get the UAC 'Continue' screen. I've looked in compatibility
> settings, and nothing's checked.
> I did a little experimentation and found that if i renamed or moved
> firefox.exe, this no longer happaned. In fact, if i replace firefox.exe with
> another completely unrelated executable (say notepad.exe), vista will run it
> as administrator, ie. Any file called C:\program files\mozilla
> firefox\firefox.exe now requires administrator priveleges to execute. How
> can I resolve this issue?
> A web search returns one forum posting with the exact same problem, on the
> MSDN forums, and these guys dont seem to solve the problem either:
>
> http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=302717
>
> And another thing: I initially thought "well, since I spent so much on vista
> I may as well use the professional support", but on going to
> support.microsoft.com and following the instructions, I'm told that I
> entered my product ID in an incorrect format, even though I did not. It even
> says this when I allow the ActiveX control to submit my ID for me.
>
> Thanks in advance for any ideas.
>
>

Actually, that wouldn't work, assuming I installed it to the same location.

"EJW" <EJW@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:E6BF2766-988F-4A1A-86CA-4A398398A510@microsoft.com...
> Hello David,
> One simple solution would be to completley uninstall firefox and just
> reinstall the software.
>
> "david" wrote:
>
>> Hi, I'm using Vista Home Premium, and up until now everything's been
>> going
>> fine. Today I decided to install an add-on for firefox, which worked
>> fine,
>> but when I closed firefox Vista popped up a dialog suggesting that
>> something
>> may not have worked correctly, and asking if I would like to try running
>> firefox with administrator priveleges. Thinking that this would be
>> one-off,
>> perhaps to complete installation of the addon, I pressed yes. Now every
>> time
>> I run firefox I get the UAC 'Continue' screen. I've looked in
>> compatibility
>> settings, and nothing's checked.
>> I did a little experimentation and found that if i renamed or moved
>> firefox.exe, this no longer happaned. In fact, if i replace firefox.exe
>> with
>> another completely unrelated executable (say notepad.exe), vista will run
>> it
>> as administrator, ie. Any file called C:\program files\mozilla
>> firefox\firefox.exe now requires administrator priveleges to execute. How
>> can I resolve this issue?
>> A web search returns one forum posting with the exact same problem, on
>> the
>> MSDN forums, and these guys dont seem to solve the problem either:
>>
>> http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=302717
>>
>> And another thing: I initially thought "well, since I spent so much on
>> vista
>> I may as well use the professional support", but on going to
>> support.microsoft.com and following the instructions, I'm told that I
>> entered my product ID in an incorrect format, even though I did not. It
>> even
>> says this when I allow the ActiveX control to submit my ID for me.
>>
>> Thanks in advance for any ideas.
>>
>>

Did you try to right click on the icon then go to properties then to
compatibility and then run it in Windows XP (Service Pack 2)? That has solved
a few of my problems w\ Vista.

"david" wrote:

> Actually, that wouldn't work, assuming I installed it to the same location.
>
> "EJW" <EJW@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:E6BF2766-988F-4A1A-86CA-4A398398A510@microsoft.com...
> > Hello David,
> > One simple solution would be to completley uninstall firefox and just
> > reinstall the software.
> >
> > "david" wrote:
> >
> >> Hi, I'm using Vista Home Premium, and up until now everything's been
> >> going
> >> fine. Today I decided to install an add-on for firefox, which worked
> >> fine,
> >> but when I closed firefox Vista popped up a dialog suggesting that
> >> something
> >> may not have worked correctly, and asking if I would like to try running
> >> firefox with administrator priveleges. Thinking that this would be
> >> one-off,
> >> perhaps to complete installation of the addon, I pressed yes. Now every
> >> time
> >> I run firefox I get the UAC 'Continue' screen. I've looked in
> >> compatibility
> >> settings, and nothing's checked.
> >> I did a little experimentation and found that if i renamed or moved
> >> firefox.exe, this no longer happaned. In fact, if i replace firefox.exe
> >> with
> >> another completely unrelated executable (say notepad.exe), vista will run
> >> it
> >> as administrator, ie. Any file called C:\program files\mozilla
> >> firefox\firefox.exe now requires administrator priveleges to execute. How
> >> can I resolve this issue?
> >> A web search returns one forum posting with the exact same problem, on
> >> the
> >> MSDN forums, and these guys dont seem to solve the problem either:
> >>
> >> http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=302717
> >>
> >> And another thing: I initially thought "well, since I spent so much on
> >> vista
> >> I may as well use the professional support", but on going to
> >> support.microsoft.com and following the instructions, I'm told that I
> >> entered my product ID in an incorrect format, even though I did not. It
> >> even
> >> says this when I allow the ActiveX control to submit my ID for me.
> >>
> >> Thanks in advance for any ideas.
> >>
> >>
>
>

As you can read in cquirke's post below, this will not help. The only way (I
know) to solve it is by editing the registry.
"EJW" <EJW@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:37301D60-BC86-4DC4-B71B-2CCCC76EFBEA@microsoft.com...
> Did you try to right click on the icon then go to properties then to
> compatibility and then run it in Windows XP (Service Pack 2)? That has
> solved
> a few of my problems w\ Vista.
>
> "david" wrote:
>
>> Actually, that wouldn't work, assuming I installed it to the same
>> location.
>>
>> "EJW" <EJW@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
>> news:E6BF2766-988F-4A1A-86CA-4A398398A510@microsoft.com...
>> > Hello David,
>> > One simple solution would be to completley uninstall firefox and just
>> > reinstall the software.
>> >
>> > "david" wrote:
>> >
>> >> Hi, I'm using Vista Home Premium, and up until now everything's been
>> >> going
>> >> fine. Today I decided to install an add-on for firefox, which worked
>> >> fine,
>> >> but when I closed firefox Vista popped up a dialog suggesting that
>> >> something
>> >> may not have worked correctly, and asking if I would like to try
>> >> running
>> >> firefox with administrator priveleges. Thinking that this would be
>> >> one-off,
>> >> perhaps to complete installation of the addon, I pressed yes. Now
>> >> every
>> >> time
>> >> I run firefox I get the UAC 'Continue' screen. I've looked in
>> >> compatibility
>> >> settings, and nothing's checked.
>> >> I did a little experimentation and found that if i renamed or moved
>> >> firefox.exe, this no longer happaned. In fact, if i replace
>> >> firefox.exe
>> >> with
>> >> another completely unrelated executable (say notepad.exe), vista will
>> >> run
>> >> it
>> >> as administrator, ie. Any file called C:\program files\mozilla
>> >> firefox\firefox.exe now requires administrator priveleges to execute.
>> >> How
>> >> can I resolve this issue?
>> >> A web search returns one forum posting with the exact same problem, on
>> >> the
>> >> MSDN forums, and these guys dont seem to solve the problem either:
>> >>
>> >> http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=302717
>> >>
>> >> And another thing: I initially thought "well, since I spent so much on
>> >> vista
>> >> I may as well use the professional support", but on going to
>> >> support.microsoft.com and following the instructions, I'm told that I
>> >> entered my product ID in an incorrect format, even though I did not.
>> >> It
>> >> even
>> >> says this when I allow the ActiveX control to submit my ID for me.
>> >>
>> >> Thanks in advance for any ideas.
>> >>
>> >>
>>
>>