There are many tips to making Vista a better experience. However, I am going to address only one of them at this time.

From my research, The User Account Control is one of the biggest issues that people are dealing with. It is one of the biggest nuisance, and inferences that affects productivity and entertainment. But, it doesn’t have to be that way. I’m not talking about turning it off. Even though turning it off takes care of the problem rather quickly. It could cause problems with Internet Explorer’s security and has been rumored that some commands don’t work properly if you turn off the UAC.

These days there are a lot of people that have opted to use other browsers because of there features and ability to be customized, still some people prefer to use IE as they’re primary browser. Turning off the UAC could cause security issues that would compromise Internet Explorer over all.

I suggest enabling the “super secret” administrator account that is present in Vista. By using this account, you can bypass the UAC automatically because it isn’t enabled under this account and you are giving “full access” rights. Which means that you don’t have to ‘run as administrator’ any longer.
The downside to using this account is that you have to properly configure your security to avoid “outside” users from attacking your computer, due to the fact that this is the main account in Vista. Which is why Microsoft decided to make it secret, they’re intentions were to disable the account to keep your computer safer.

When I say configure security, I’m talking about setting a strong password (strong, not like my mother’s) and using a firewall, as well as other prevention measures.

So, you do have choices that will make your experience with Vista a better one. After all, Windows Vista is the best OS that Microsoft has ever made (In my opinion). And in time I hope to show people that this true.

For those of you that would like to know how to enable the secret administrator account, I explain it below.

First, open your control panel. Inside your control panel, click on System and Maintenance. Scroll down to the bottom and click on Administrative Tools.

Next, the Administrator Tools window will open up. From there, click on Computer Management. Then the Computer Management Window will open.

On the right-hand side panel, you should see Local Users and Groups, double click on it. Now in the middle panel, double click on Users. You should see the Administrator icon at the top, in the middle panel. Right click on the Administrator icon and then click Properties.

In the Properties box, uncheck the ‘Account is Disabled’ box.
Once that is done, you should be able to restart. Once restarted, you should see the Administrator Account on the Welcome Screen.

Now you have a choice of using that account and deleting your User Account or you can keep your User Account and just use the Administrator Account when you need it. However, the Administrator Account is going to be “like new”. You will have to personalize it if you decide to use it as your main account. Also, in my opinion, if you are not going to use it often then I would disable it again.

These steps have always worked for me, however I know that doesn’t mean they will work for everyone. Let me know if you experience any trouble with them.

I will be writing other tips every once in a while. My goal in that is to give people a better experience with Vista because Windows Vista is truly getting better. Service Pack 1 will be released soon and should correct many issues within the operating system. Windows Update has been silently doing that since Vista’s release. Of course, We can only hope that Vista’s driver issues are corrected with SP1. Vista’s driver issues are in my opinion Vista’s biggest problem.

Edit: Apparently, There is a much easier way of enabling the Administrator Account. I would link to the post that contains the information, but I don’t know yet how that works. So I’m going to copy a part of the post. The information was posted by Diana Huggins.

To enable the account, follow the steps below.

1. Type cmd in the Search field on the Start menu. Right click the command prompt icon at the top of the Start menu and click Run as administrator.
2. Type ‘Net user administrator /active:yes’.

Once done, reboot and the account will appear on the Welcome Screen.

I added this alternative so that the information could be availible in more places, I’m not trying to take credit for anyone’s posts.

Until next time, take care!

[tags]Windows, Vista, help, advice, tips, hazymorning[/tags]