Why is it that Vista only stops the programs I want to run from running?

Have you tried running as administrator?

Right click the program exe or shortcut and click "Run as an administrator" in the resulting dialog

Done it no help

Install games outside program files folder. c:\games or something.

Just in case, are you the admin?

Have you tried disabling UAC?

Make sure you have the latest service pack installed and all updates, UAC turned off
Disable UAC from the Command Prompt

1. Type cmd in the search box in the Start Menu.
2. Right-click cmd in the search results and select to Run as administrator.
3. Type the following in the command prompt and press enter:

C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /k %windir%\System32\reg.exe ADD HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System /v EnableLUA /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f
4. Restart your computer.

consider getting windows 7, even though it has it's share of bugs as well.

in general I think the same stuff that runs on Vista runs on 7. I've had trouble with some stuff that works flawlessly in Vista and vice versa.

Oddly enough the only game I ever had trouble running on vista was Homeworld 2, and it was vista 32bit, while my friend on the other hand has no problems with Win 7, but pretty much everything was unusable on vista.

They are pretty similar from what I understand, maybe it has something to do with the individual computer.

Define stops. Do you get any error messages or something?