If anything, MS has done more over the years to piss me off than SM but I have to agree with chaneya here. If you provide an install option that by default cripples key functionality in your application, and you could have avoided it by making documented OS calls, then it's your bad as a developer. I don't care what misgivings MS may have had about UAC and what changes they may have made in Win7. The fact is people are using Vista and the Poser install option is (apparently) breaking search. It is NOT up to the user to Google UAC or be aware that all those in the know have it turned off. It is up to the developer to assume that the user will be running the OS in the default state and plan accordingly. I'd cut them a lot of slack if this were the early days of Vista when everyone was comming to grips with UAC. At this point, it's like crashing at 60 on a road clearly marked 'Danger Ice,' and blaming the county.

The "Gee everyone runs with UAC off" notion. clearly leaves out two groups, those who don't know about turning it off and those who actually prefer to leave security features enabled. I use Comodo's security tools and their Defense++ module pops up with annoying regularity but I personally prefer knowing when apps are writing to system folders or modifying protected registry keys. Others may prefer blessed silence but either way having your installer silently fail is not Microsoft's fault or that of the users. Developers are human and bugs happen. Now that the issue is known, they can resolve it for users having the problem and patch the installer - and I bet they will pay a lot more attention to installation issues with the next release.

"Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance." - H. L. Mencken