www.virtualacorn.co.uk/forum

I installed Windows 8.1 when it was released a few months ago and since then have had a problem with VARiscPC AdjustSA. It is not causing me too much trouble as I now know what and where the problem lies. The problem is how do I stop the problem occurring in the first place?.

I run VA as stated on my Windows 8.1 Laptop, and keep all my bank and password info on my real Risc PC when I wish to update my Banking info I run the program in VRPC and obtain the DATA from the RealRisc PC via the LAN all OK, but if I have some files which are out of date on the VA and download the up to date files from Real RiscPC windows insists on saving them in a different location than expected, not on the HardDisc4 which is in the VirtualAcorn folder on the C Drive but in another location which is also named HardDisc4 this file is located at C drive, User, Allan, Appdata, Local, VirtualStore, ProgramFile, Virtual Acorn, VirtualRiscPC-adjustSA, HardDisc4 and there are the new file which I have brought across from the real Risc PC, and they appear when the VARPC is running to be in the HardDisc4, but if one looks for them there by opening the C drive they do not exist. To over come this I manually cut and paste the files to the correct location. If I try to delete files which appear to be in the correct location but in reality are else where I get an Access Violation error. Every time I shut down VARPC windows writes some of the !boot files to the incorrect location which can also cause problems such It appears Windows have some thing wrong, or is it just me!

I might sound cynical but is my question not relevant to any one, 18 visits, but not one reply or am I asking the wrong question or should I be asking the question in a Windows Technical Forum, (trouble is they have not heard of Risc OS or Virtual Acorn so never come up with an answer)? I really do need help!

Maybe those reading this topic think you should do what I did - a google search on "appdata local virtualstore". Viewing a few of the search results it looks likely that either your user account or the way you're downloading the files from the real risc pc to the Harddisc4 directory in Adjust-SA which is in a sub directory inside Program Files on the C drive doesn't have sufficient permissions to write to the Program Files directory, or presumably a sub directory inside it, so windows redirects the files to the virtualstore for the user account.

adm1, thank you for your reply, I will give it a try, thanks also for being the only person to answer. It's no good other forum members thinking what I should be doing and not mentioning it in a post, if I had known where to search and for what I would already have done so thereby not needing to ask! From what I read in your post I see that I am not the only one with the problem.

Allan, to be fair to other forum members and ourselves, I do think you're being rather hard on us all by implying that we are ignoring you. ("I might sound cynical but is my question not relevant to any one, 18 visits, but not one reply " and "thanks also for being the only person to answer. It's no good other forum members thinking what I should be doing and not mentioning it in a post..."). Those are frankly unhelpful comments and and not compatible with a happy forum.

Please appreciate that we're all very willing to assist where we can but, where the problem appears as being complex, and with only limited information to work on, a solution may simply not become apparent. We did in fact give it a lot of thought and exchange of ideas in the office here, but did not come up with a cogent answer - so did not respond to your post. Maybe others are in the same boat.

Please also appreciate that, although there may be many thousands of VirtualRPC users, the bulk of us are still using host PCs running Windows XP, and relatively few are likely to be familiar with Windows 7, still less Windows 8. So you may be one of the 'fleet leaders' in this respect.

Fortunately, pdm1 did some good lateral thinking and helpfully came up with a good clue which appears to be on the right track. But bearing in mind this seems to be specific to Windows 7/8, and (on the face of it) not related to VirtualRPC or RISC OS, it's perhaps not surprising that no-one else replied to your post. HTH.

Jim Nottingham
pp T.O.M.S.

Thank you for your comments, yes I was a little hard, I just came to the end of my tether, I have not been able to get any help from a Windows Forum where one would have thought they might have know the reason and have an answer.
In the past I have had great responses from forum members including T.O.M.S. so sorry if I did not post in a friendly manner.
I did respond to Jim Nottingham's post a day or so ago, but it appears to have not reached the forum.

I might have resolved the problem, I removed all the files which were in "HardDisc4" in Virtual Store after I had copies them to the correct location in the "real" "HardDisc4" within the Virtual Acorn program file.
I then did a right click over the folder "Virtual Acorn RiscPC" in the Virtual Store and "took Ownership of all the files stored there" and deleted them, so far the files which I have copied from my real RiscPC to VA have not re-appeared in the wrong place.

If, as I believe this is the answer, then the above may be of interest to other VA users. I also think that the other issues which I posted on the forum re VA since installing Windows 8.1 were caused by files which I did not know were still on my PC getting in the way of a clean installation of VA.

I have also taken ownership of all the files on the HardDisc4 in the VA program file, I hope my problems are solved!!