Marshall - adjusting your settings for UAC *[User  Account Control] * will stop the messages you are getting. Vista is defaulting to a network setting and has assigned new users with the lowest grade securirty clearance until advised otherwise by the system administrator,  Either: switch off UAC if the machine is not networked and you are the only user,  assign your user name with a higher level authority, or log in as administrator.

Richard - The issue you describe with MS Word is not a Vista problem.  MS Word 2007 saves by default in a new format *.docx this format is not backwards compatible so use save options to save documents as a * .doc file so that it can be read by older versions of Word.

And every one said, 'If we only live,
We too will go to sea in a Sieve,---
To the hills of the Chankly Bore!'
Far and few, far and few, Are the lands where the Jumblies live;
Their heads are green, and their hands are blue, And they went to sea in a Sieve.

Edward Lear
http://www.nonsenselit.org/Lear/ns/jumblies.html