Quite a bit of angst and frustration directed toward Windows XP... lest we
forget that XP has been the most compatible NT-based operating system for
games and applications. Do any of us really want to go back to the days of
Windows 98, 95, or even 3.x? There have been quite a few transitions in the
gaming world prior to this, and all of them have been contested to some
extent. Problems involving boot disks, memory errors, and trying to juggle
Windows 95 and DOS games on the same machine were as or more complicated
than what we have to deal with today.
Oftentimes the most difficult steps needed to be taken to get a game running
on Windows XP involves updated drivers and fiddling with Compatibility Mode;
Windows has come a long way towards making computer gaming an easy and
viable option. The benefits of security and stability with XP (IMHO)
outweigh the problems and issues related to getting certain programs
running.
As far as your particular problem, if you read through quite a few other
posts here you'll get directions detailing on how to run games as users
other than administrator. Though it's generally assumed that running
constantly as administrator is not a good idea, consider it a blessing that
Windows makes it safer than running a Linux (or comparable) machine as root.
~Andy~
