unfortunately restarting my computer didnt help. i really do think i killed them.

i guess that will teach me to try new things. all im thinking of right now for over a month they have been part of my daily life. i watched them grow and everyhting

Since you created another user account and (it seems) reinstalled the game from there, the game might not have the correct privileges. What happens if you right-click on the game's application icon and select "Run as administrator?"

a box pops up saying allow or cancel. i hit allow and it says the same 2 things i took a pic of in my first post

Since you have your savegame files backed up, it might be time to completely uninstall Virtual Families (either from the Control Panel - Add and Remove Programs or from the uninst icon in the game's folder in Program Files), and then reinstall it from your primary user account. Something has gotten messed up while you were trying to set it up in the other user account, and it's very difficult to determine what is wrong unless I can actually see your computer (which I can't).

You will be able to restore your savegame files if something bad happens during the install/reinstall process, so you don't have to worry about that.

ok this is really weird. i uninstalled and reinstalled from the website. i left the run VF box checked after the install and it ran great except i had no families. i clicked options full screen off then i hit quit. i doubleclicked the icon it put on my desktop and it did the same 2 boxes. so anytime i want to play i have to run the installer?

I know that Windows Vista behaves differently from Windows 98 and XP. It's possible that the display settings have somehow gotten messed up for the game. Try to force the game back to full-screen mode using the procedure in this post to see if it will run again. If it will, put your savegame files back in the proper folder in My Documents, and your games should be there again. You can run it in full-screen mode until we can figure out a better solution.

I'm going to have to quit work for the night now, since I get up before 5:30 AM every day. If that procedure doesn't fix the problem, we'll have another look tomorrow.

ok well, i tried that and it wouldnt let me save it like that. i understand about u having to get up early. now that i know i can play, even if i have to run the installer everytime lol im feeling a little bit better. thanks for all ur help tonight and ill talk to u tomorrow!

It sounds like you are not using an Administrator account on your computer. Much of what you need to do to correct this kind of problem can only be done if you have administrator privileges, especially in Windows Vista, which has a lot of security features.

Could you check to see if your user account has administrator privileges?

i checked the control panel. im the administrator and im the only user account. i deleted the other one. its frustrating, BUT i can play but i have to run the installer everytime.