You hit the nail on the head.
A lot of coders don't properly code things so they require an admin
mode to run which is ridiculous.
The reason why you saw that one disappear is because they took the
time to fix their coding so it was done properly.
Pre-Vista it was an issue, but Microsoft didn't enforce security stuff,
now Vista basically won't put up with sloppy code. If your program
writes to protected areas (anything outside of C:\USERS\(Current User)\)
then you have to tell the user (UAC) that you're about to do something
that could mess up your system.
There's a VISIO style drawing program I have here at my office, and the
guys that wrote it said, "It doesn't work in Vista, only XP". After
installing the program I can see why, they write files to C:\Windows\,
to the root folder C:\, and to a bunch of folders that you should never
write too.
Now that Vista doesn't allow that, their program is gonna need a major
re-write before it works correctly. I'm guessing their program code
isn't very robust, probably have literal paths hard coded throughout
instead of variables.
What's funny is these guidelines have been in place for years, and
Microsoft told everyone years in advance that these guidelines were
going to switch from recommended to "required" with Vista, but it seems
they didn't invest the time to fix the issues. Microsoft was even
offering free advice to developers that asked about it.
Oh well...