When working in Windows Vista and above with User Access Control (UAC) enabled, modified files in Program Files (and possibly in some other locations) are stored somewhere in a virtual location. Where can this location be found, and how can this be dealt with?
WhyThe point is that when users work not under the local administrator account, all files changed by the user on the computer in important locations are saved not in the actual directory (for example, not in C:\Program Files), but in a certain virtual location. In this way, a user who has messed something up on their own computer in important files does not cause a system failure - another user logging on to the computer simply will not see these changes.
It looks as if you really did change something in C:\Program Files. In fact, as long as UAC is enabled, the clever Windows is merely projecting a virtual file onto the place of the real one.
Where\Users\%username%\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\
How to avoid this and what to doRun Explorer, Far, or Total Commander under the local administrator account (i.e., right-click and "Run as administrator"). Then the user will be changing the actual files, rather than files dynamically created in VirtualStore and projected onto the real locations.
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