So, I remember in old games, after beating it I would sometimes goof off by editting the coding to allow cheats/hacks.

For example Icewind Dale, requires that I edit the ini file to have a Cheat=1 coding so I can cheat in game.

Tried that this time around and was unable to edit the file. Whats the fix/workaround?

I use Vista btw.

Did you install to Program Files?

Unable to in what sense?

It's most likely because Vista's UAC isn't letting you modify things in Program Files.

Yes, each time I try to save it grumbles at me, saying I am unable to modify. If, I go in change permissions will that help?

Run Notepad (or your editor of choice) as administrator, then open the file.

It might, but you'd still have to fiddle around with shadow folders vs actual folders and duplicated files. And then you might run into other problems later on. My advice for games this old is to simply uninstall them, and reinstall them to a non-protected folder, like "C:\Games\". Everything else is inviting trouble. These old games weren't written according to the standards that newer Windows versions enforce, and that can cause all kinds of problems, especially with the file system.

You shouldn't install old games to Program Files on Vista/7, but given that you have, an easy workaround is to copy the file somewhere else (to your desktop, for instance), open it from there, edit and save it, and finally copy it back. For some weird reason, Microsoft are dead set against you making changes to files under the Program Files folder, but have no problem with you overwriting them entirely by copying a different file on top of the old one. Go figure.