Well, what exactly is the difference between the behavior of Windows 8 and the virtual directories of Windows 7 and Windows Vista (which work exactly in the same way as you describe them for Windows 8, and which are switched on by default)?

It's possible that you didn't notice it in Windows Vista/7 if you simply switched UAC off very early, but I don't see any significant changes to the way the VirtualStore affects savegames since it was introduced in Vista. If you think that they exist, then what exactly _did_ change in your opinion?

The tenacity of UAC and the changes in file and directory permissions (and how strictly they are enforced) under Windows 8. Basically because Windows 8 is the most secure version of Windows yet, it causes the most problems with programs that expect the lack of security of previous Windows versions.

Sorry for bumping up an older topic, but I was wondering if you did switched off UAC in Windows 7 completely, will the save files be able to freely "write" themselves in the "program files" directory or will they still be saved to that Virtualstore "hidden" folder?

Yeah, I turned UAC off in Win7 (This appears to be impossible in Win8 -- it reinstates itself after every reboot) and everything seemed to save where it was expected to. As I said, I never heard of the Virtualstore until I got Win8. I used Win7 for about a year, and one of the first things I did was turn off UAC.