Heads up for Windows Lightroom users.

I've just spent an hour trying to resolve a problem and thought I'd share and save anyone else the same hassle.

Affected software:
Windows 7 64bit (perhaps Vista and perhaps 32bit versions too)
Lightroom 2.6

The Problem:
Lightroom refuses to launch except when using the "Run as Administrator" option.

The cause:
I had changed the Library setting for Windows Media Centre to exclude the "My Pictures" folder as thousands of images were slowing it down.

Lightroom by default keeps it's catalogue in "My Pictures".

The solution:
Restore the library settings to include "My Pictures".

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It seems that Windows 7 and perhaps Vista too (as they are the same ) changes the folder permissions when you exclude a folder from the Media Centre Library which meant that Lightroom couldn't read its own catalogue without Admin rights.

I've submitted this as a bug to both Adobe and MS (who's fault it is).

Next step, move your images to another folder - My Art, My Sublime Creations or My Monkey on My Back.

tzalman wrote in post #9500476
Next step, move your images to another folder - My Art, My Sublime Creations or My Monkey on My Back.

Since "Art" and "Sublime Creations" do not generally describe my photos, does this mean that I must put them into a "My Monkey on My Back" folder:p?

Some advice: Never....NEVER...keep your images or catalog or other valuable user data on the same hard drive as your operating system. Get a second internal drive or external drive. Case in point... Had to reformat the OS last weekend due to accidently deleting the only user account. Could not log on. No recovery point had been set. No problem. Reinstalled the OS and my five apps, updated them, tweeked some settings, I was online again in 4 hours. All my data was secure on the other internal drive.

I never keep my data on the OS drive. Makes for easier backups too.

Thanks for that tip by the way.

I agree with the above post - I keep my catalog and images on a portable external, and those are also backed up on an external desktop drive. I have LR set up to import onto both drives a once.