Making 2.3 install in Vista
by Eliah Hecht 
Nov 13th 2007 at 7:00PM
Apparently, the new patch has been having some problems under Windows Vista. Based on the description of the symptoms, I imagine this would be the same for other patches, so many of you may know this fix already. But then, some of you may have just upgraded to Vista. Anyway, here's the problem: the patch downloads OK, but the patcher fails to run correctly. According to Growl at Gitr's blog, this is because of permissions; the "normal" user on Vista doesn't have admin permissions, and therefore can't do things like run patchers.Fortunately, Growl has an easy solution. Just right-click the WoW icon and select "Run as administrator" (as depicted); log in and WoW will spawn the patch download, which will inherit its administrator privileges and, in turn, spin off the patcher, also running with admin privileges. Safety is good, Microsoft, but Vista might be a little too safe for its own good. Couldn't we at least have an alert asking us if we wanted to authorize the patcher?
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Recession Nov 13th 2007 7:15PM
Alternatively, you could go into [Drive]:\Program Files\World of Warcraft and go into the folder called PATCHES.
Find the 2.2 to 2.3 patch folder and run the exe file. Bam, patch installs. That's how I got my dad's to work for him.
Theoban Nov 13th 2007 7:16PM
Well done Growl! I mean Blizzard wouldn't hasn't had this on their site since February.
Oh wait....
http://forums.wow-europe.com/thread.html?topicId=121883086&sid=1#3
Tpaloki Nov 13th 2007 7:16PM
Thanks! I was just about to start downloading the file from fileplanet, because the downloader wasn't working. This worked great!
Lev Nov 13th 2007 7:29PM
yeah tried about 3 times before doing the run as admin and it worked. If you've used Vista much then you get used to having to do this occasionally.
Zeplar Nov 13th 2007 8:10PM
Most people don't realize this, but if you're an admin on Vista, you probably aren't the *big* administrator. Go into the command prompt and type "Net user administrator /active:yes" to open up the Big Administrator account, which will appear on your login screen and doesn't have those annoying "Do you wish to allow X to run" screens. This will also cause every program on the account to automatically run as administrator.
I have also had problems with the patch in that if you downloaded half a PTR patch, but then stopped, you have to delete it to download the real patch.
Hallick Nov 13th 2007 8:17PM
I don't know if it's fair to blame Microsoft for this one. An installer that matches Microsoft's guidelines for Vista will prompt for elevated privileges if it needs them. Having you run WoW as an administrator is a cheap fix for Blizzard but really not the right one, you shouldn't have to run an application that's not performing administrative tasks in admin mode.
Jason Nov 13th 2007 8:30PM
I just went into compatibility tab for the WoW icon and set it to always run as admin. Now I never have to worry about it.
VincentMagius Nov 13th 2007 8:41PM
I just went into the User Accounts and turned User Access Control off. Unless a program is designed with the security of Vista in mind, you shouldn't have to look back.
Green Armadillo Nov 13th 2007 8:54PM
As Recession said, it's much more sensible to go and manually run the patch file once it finishes downloading than it is to always run WoW as an admin. I don't know of any computer viruses that specifically try to corrupt the WoW client install, but we've got our own keyloggers, so it's only a matter of time, and there's no benefit to taking the extra risk.
troyliljedahl Nov 13th 2007 9:36PM
or you could just get OS X or XP. Its such a pain to install anything not from microsoft...
billgates Nov 13th 2007 11:06PM
I guess the WoW starts later
Finnicks Nov 14th 2007 4:41AM
Interesting. So Vista is to blame for my troubles this morning. I just ended up downloading the patch from FileFront. It took all of 20 minutes on my cable connection, so it wasn't a big deal.
The downloader would run, but Vista wasn't letting it extract the patching .exe file to the WoW directory. Sucked.
Andrew Herron Nov 14th 2007 4:50AM
I think this is simply a launcher bug; as soon as you load BNUpdate.exe you are prompted for admin rights and away it goes.
I'm positive the 2.2 patch did this automatically, it looks like the launcher just doesn't bother to load the 2.3 update exe on vista.
TV Genius is a Dumb ass Nov 14th 2007 9:24AM
I have vista and my patch installed fine.
Hone Melgren Nov 14th 2007 10:26AM
@6
No dood it's vista's fault. AFAIK there was only a PC build and a Mac build done .There was no "vista" build.
So it's not like Blizzard purposely coded it to do this on Vista. This is Vista doing it . And it is doing adminstrative tasks - its writing over existing program files.
Predatorprime Nov 14th 2007 11:00AM
Ummm... I've been running vista since launch and Blizzard should have set your launcher to auto run as admin. The other option (the one I suggest for PC vets) is to disable UAC as its just a giant pain in the "butt" when it comes to running or installing anything.
Grats though on posting 8 month old news :P