During standalone model installation, one user received an error that read “This directory cannot be written!” upon attempting to install the model into C:/Program Files/modelName. Creating the modelName directory directly in Explorer didn’t help, and neither did giving TrustedInstaller.exe (which is built into Vista) full permissions.
It seems like this may be an IzPack compatibility with Vista/Windows 7 issue (no guarantee, as I haven’t yet personally experienced or fixed this issue). (Repast uses IzPack to create the standalone .jar for model installation.) I haven’t been able to verify this myself yet, but am hoping the clue may be useful to others. It may be possible to overcome this error through settings within IzPack, a solution that I am only guessing is possible on the basis of a non-Repast thread at Stack Overflow — in that thread, the user solved the problem by making the installer ask for appropriate privilege escalation.
Drawing on that thread, apparently the issue here is a change in how post-Windows XP versions of Windows do administrator privileges. In Visa and Windows 7, you can be logged in “as an administrator”, but that doesn’t actually mean anything unless the UI/UAC confirms it (in reality on those OSs, running “as an admin” means you are actually running as a privileged user who can elevate to admin under appropriate circumstances). As a result, during install, the installer needs to know to pop up the UAC dialogue that queries the user whether s/he is okay with elevating for this task. The default Repast installer doesn’t allow for this.
You can also avoid this issue on Vista/Windows 7 by installing the model into a subdirectory of My Documents, should that be a possibility.