There's a legitimate and easy way to install and run Sacred Plus and / or UW under Vista without having to disable UAC or running as an admin or even resorting to things like cracking; I have one set of licenses (Plus+UW) running under Vista 32 (laptop), and there's no problem running either one. The icons / links to both installations aren't set to 'run as administrator', either.
Here's how:
- Firstly, get rid of the idea to install Sacred (or any other game) into its default directory. Get it out of your head, use a blowtorch if necessary.
- Install Sacred Plus into something like c:\Sacred, and update to 1.8.26 using the full retail patch
- run once, to get the update mechanism going. (requires Sacred Plus CD 2 in the drive, like in the old days)
- Install UW into another directory, like c:\Sacred Underworld, choose separate installation
- update to v 2.28
- run and enjoy
Multiplayer caveat:
- Start Sacred or UW
- Go to Options: set transfer speed to Modem/ISDN
- Get your character into the MP game
- Once in the game, go to Options again and change back to DSL before doing anything else.
Reasons for doing the installation my way:
Vista needs all the protection it can get, and UAC/not running things as admin are important mechanisms. UAC prevents changes to the default paths like c:\user in order to try to prevent BAD things from happening. Turning off UAC if you want to / have to run Vista isn't a very good idea, try to avoid it. Simply using a different directory, on a path outside the Windows defaults, will amend most of your gaming ailments under Vista.