I finally got the chance today to get back to working on PowerTray, this time with my Visual Studio 2005 installation on my Virtualized Windows Vista setup.  The first thing I ran into was this warning dialog:

To me, this is the kind of issue that shows immaturity in the OS.  Though it is possible to run the environment without full-blown admin permissions, some of the functionality of the environment is limited as a result.  There is an MSDN article on the subject which outlines the difficulties that are faced without admin rights.

Most of the problems are only resolvable by running VS2005 using administrative permissions.  Ross Dagan has a post on his blog on just how to set this up using the VS2005 shortcut.

Admittedly this is just another front in the battle between security and usability.  I understand why most of the security features which cause these issues exist in Vista, and admittedly the option to run only Visual Studio in administrative mode does keep the computer quite secure.  It’s just disappointing that there isn’t a more elegant solution.