Is there any specific reason why GOG games seem to always have "Run this program as an administrator" checked by default? Eg:

[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/3FFV6Ag.png[/IMG]

It's probably a precaution. A stupid and dangerous precaution I might add, I'm all for removing that particular bit of 'compatibility'

Probably default behavior since a number of older games and software assumes admin access... Most of the time with Vista and later systems, the easiest way to get a game running was give it admin access.. Stupid but that's the way it goes...

Some tend to install their games in ProgrammFiles (x86) and if you don´t have admin rights, the games often won´t work the right way!

This particular issue can be resolved quite simply by enforcing game installation outside of Program Files directory, requiring admin access is an overkill.

Not anymore. The default path for the new installers is C:\GOG Games, or whatever path you used in the last installation (I use C:\Games as my games folder and all future GOG installations automatically use C:\Games).

Yes, I know. But that doesn´t matter if somebody is ACTIVLY (which was what i was talking about---> 'tend') selecting ProgrammFiles (x86) as the installation folder!

Oh, I thought the "tend" part was referring to the installers. Nevermind.

Depends on the feature set. When most of the games in question were made, it was assumed with win 95/98 access.. Meaning anyone could read/write to files with no file locking, full access, and you could access memory and resources without question...

Vista threw a wrench in gaming for a while, regardless what directory you installed to or what games you were interested in.

Well, to be fair, outside of Program Files - unless specifically restricted - all users get full access as far as file system goes. And the biggest issue with running games inside Program Files folder is that games try to write into .ini or other support files, or just read saves, which access restriction in Program Files disallows. 99% of games that don't work when installed into Program Files will work without admin permissios outside of that.

For that 1% which won't, I'd deem admin access as a reasonable solution. But as it stands, GOG gives all their games admin permissions, which is just... Not good.

I think this is a valid concern, computer security is not a joking matter. At the same time I see why GoG would do this. Any steps that prevent problems, saves a message to customer support. This may just be a problem with "one size fits all" installers.

If you wanted security, Windows wouldn't be your OS of choice.

Unix/Linux systems were built from the ground up with certain ideals in mind, and one of them included good security. The filesystem alone has 3 access groups: Owner, Group, Other. Each of those has read/write/execute combinations. Recent versions of Windows have incorporated a similar (if not the same) system, but with backwards compatibility windows can't fully utilize the security features.

If you consider the likelihood of viruses infecting your computer? Malware? Windows is littered with security issues. Yeah they are getting better but then you compare against Unix/Linux systems and you don't see any of that. Viruses just don't spread unless they have full access to the system (so only if your running admin), and by default you don't run as admin, you run as a lesser account. Should anything run that shouldn't (say, malware or a virus) it could only affect your own personal files and couldn't affect the rest of the system.

It's much like how Protected mode in CPU's work by sandboxing everything into different compartments so one can't affect the other.

Now if it's a valid concern or not, if you want to play your game quite often it's 'screw security I want to play my game' and they will happily run as admin.

Of course, that doesn't change that Windows security is improving quite rapidly (by copying Linux model, more or less) and GOG fucking over that is not the best idea. There are better solutions to the issue. I kind of hope Windows will eventually incorporate the model of not remembering the password, when users are inconvenienced by 'Run as admin' behaviour, it will be much less prominent.

Of course, not to mention the fact that games should be installable and useable even on non-admin accounts as often as possible.

Copying... Most windows users don't know how to use computers, M$ is heavily targeting on getting windows to be flashy and easy to use... And they incorporate stuff 10-15 years after other OS's have. The only advantage they have is shoving the bulk of computers out there with windows on them as the first real OS the have experience with. Course with windows 8 I wonder how well they will still want to keep a system that doesn't make any sense and breaks all the rules of earlier versions by turning every PC into a tablet...

Good review of 8 here