Just a few notes to be very careful when installing PostgreSQL 8.2.4 on Windows Vista:

Because PostgreSQL needs to be installed as a Windows service, it needs to create an account that will be granted Logon On as a Service permission. When I first installed it, I allowed the installation wizard to use a default account name (postgres) and it generated a password for me. The password was extremely long (25 random chars) and difficult to remember, and for that matter, I could not copy and paste their auto-generated password from the the dialog box that came up. It installed successfully, but when I tried to change the password with the GUI (pgAdmin III), it was unsuccessful. So, I uninstalled PostgreSQL and re-installed it with my own Windows login (instead of the default postgres account) and that’s when things went terribly wrong. After that point, the PostgreSQL would not allow me to reinstall (Error message: “another installation in process”) and on top of that Windows would not allow me to delete the files manually because of permissions rights on the C:\Program Files\PostgreSQL directory. I finally had to do a System Restore and got it working.

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