Vista - Looking for VirtualStore Info

This is confusing me ...

I have an installed program that has 2 files (Excel & Access files) that are
loaded when the program runs. I need to update both of these files
periodically.

Update either of the file, run the program and the updates are not there.

After a couple hours of trying to figure out what was going on, I stumbled
across \users\{me}\AppData\Local\VirtualStore where I found a folder that
was the name of the installed program - along with a copy of the Access &
Excel files.

For giggles, I updated both those files in that folder, ran the app and the
updates were there.

It appears as though the files are replicated from the VirtualStore folder
back to the c:\program files folder where the app is loaded.

Anyone?

TIA -
RJF

In message <8C062195-2686-4AD5-8495-BCA6F85FBBB0@microsoft.com> "RJF"
<rjf3123@yahoo.com> wrote:

>This is confusing me ...
>
>I have an installed program that has 2 files (Excel & Access files) that are
>loaded when the program runs. I need to update both of these files
>periodically.
>
>Update either of the file, run the program and the updates are not there.
>
>After a couple hours of trying to figure out what was going on, I stumbled
>across \users\{me}\AppData\Local\VirtualStore where I found a folder that
>was the name of the installed program - along with a copy of the Access &
>Excel files.
>
>For giggles, I updated both those files in that folder, ran the app and the
>updates were there.
>
>It appears as though the files are replicated from the VirtualStore folder
>back to the c:\program files folder where the app is loaded.

Many applications break for standard users (non-admins) today because
they attempt to write to protected areas that the standard user does not
have access to. UAC will improve application compatibility for these
users by redirecting writes (and subsequent reads) to a per-user
location within the user’s profile. For example, if an application
attempts to write to “C:\program files\appname\settings.ini” and the
user doesn’t have permissions to write to that directory, the write will
get redirected to “C:\Users\username\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program
Files\appname\.” To make it easier to find these redirected files has
been added a new button to Windows Explorer. If there is a virtualized
version of a file related to the current directory, a Compatibility
Files button appears that will take you to the virtual location to view
that file.

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Insert something clever here.