Disable User Account Control In Vista

Diana,

I enjoy your Windows tips, however the one useful feature that was added to Vista that will add security, you suggest to turn off. It’s clear you do not understand what UAC is intented to do. UAC is designed to prevent a virus or worm from making changes to your computer, not just other users as you stated. Looks like Microsoft should have followed Linux a little closer and not allow UAC to be disabled.

This may be a useful feature when your computer is fully loaded with all the software, drivers etc. that you require. However until that time it is a right pain in the rear as you have to confirm every single thing you change and it takes about three times as long to set up your PC.

ONLY WAY TO MAKE MY LASER PRINT IN VISTA WAS TO TURN OFF UAC.
NOW HOW DOES ONE MAKE THE RED X DISAPPEAR SINCE FORCED TO KEEP TURNED OFF TO PRINT. NOT A HANDY OPTION FOR SOLE USER.
MICROSOFT NEEDS OPTION TO TURN ON JUST TO PRINT OR WHATEVER DEVICE THE USER SPECIFIES HE USES DAILY. TURNING ON AND OFF MANUALLY EACH TIME NEEDS TO PRINT IS NO GOOD.

@BOB:

To remove the RED X here’s what u shud do….

1. right click the RED X and open security center
2. once that window is opened, on the left pane, the 5th option would be
“Change the way Windows Security Center alerts me”
3. Click the above option
4. A new dialog is shown with 3 options…
5. Select the 3rd option which is “Dont notify me and dont display the Icon (not Recommended)”
6. TADA!!!! That annoying RED X is gone….
However you will not recieve other notifications, incase some other service stops working as they should, but it isnt much of a concern

BTW - UAC is a pain if you are trying to use VNC. I find that any action being done on the remote PC that involves the UAC popup means yhe VNC connection is thrown out.

OK if UAC was doing really serius changes - but it pops up for real trivial windows setup stuff as well as teh more serious s/w install - which is probably really aimed at.

Bob Franklin has clearly never used vista.

It’s that simple.

If he had, he would know why there is the option to turn it off. He would have been peeved off by even trying the smallest things like making a new folder:

Create new folder>You need to confirm this action>Continue>Screen goes black, again “Windows needs your permission to complete the action”>Continue>The folders name is highlighted waiting for you to change the name, you do so “Bob’s Music”>Enter>again.. You need to confirm this action>Continue>Screen goes black, AGAIN “Windows needs your permission to complete the action”>Continue.

Well.. that was a small 5 second operation that instead took much longer, and even longer if your computer happens to have regular ram size and it laggs when the screen goes blank, and again even longer if, god forbid, your doing ANYTHING else in the background.

And what about if someone doesn’t have an internet connection, Bob? They don’t need to worry about a virus changing anything.. what justice would NOT being able to turn it off do?

Another thing.. why does it ask so much of doing anything so small as creating a new folder or changing the time, but then when you Shift+Del. something, it only asks are you sure, then goes on to remove even the hugest of files/folders. I think that maybe accidently removing the wrong folder or something is a lot more important than making a new folder with nothing in it.

Note to website: I like the security words, eg ‘enjoy’

The big weakness of UAC as a security feature is that it nags too much, and often it nags in technical language. So users soon get into the habit of just clicking ‘Allow’ automatically, without even thinking about it. Add to that the way that the security check sometimes comes up behind another window, so you can’t see why the computer isn’t responding, and you have a function which is good in theory, not much use in practice.

This quick reference to turning it off is useful,and it does make the point that Microsoft recommend you leave UAC turned on. It is the reader’s choice whether we decide to override that.

UAC is definately NOT needed if you already have a realtime AntiVirus and AntiSpyware software installed.

But I can see why Microsoft enabled it by default - not everyone installs AntiVirus software right from the get-go.

I find the most ridulous prompt by UAC is when calling up Windows Mail. The prompt says that it has “an unidentified publisher”. That would mean that Microsoft is that u.p.! How do they justify that? Fooey!

After read all you useful opinions, my own is…

MS, should add a feature to UAC, where you can choose by the first time launch (setup and fist launch, of course…) for each app… to give permission to run without ask when we launch that app again…

Greets!!!…
…Memo.

UAC does not appear during new folder creation on my machine. It reserves its little outbursts for Real Player which it tries to bugger up beyond belief.
I do NOT think this is unintentional.

I like the concept of the uac, it is something that honsetly should have been in place a long time ago, but once again, the actual execution is so un-logical and all around backwards that microsoft is truly living up to their track record on such things. i can only use office 2007 with it off, i turn it on, it mystically uninstalls for the only profile on the computer, but is still installed in windows, and there are quite a few forums out there with this problem, so i am definitely not alone. and what about any setting changes for it? i could not find any, as admin……..
but that is my opinion

I have a problem. I am the sole user of my machine but I had created to user accounts one for home one for school. Neither of which are administrators and now i can’t do anything when it asks for an administrator password. It only allows my to click cancel

I turned that off immediately. Every time I booted the computer, it tried to stop Adobe Updater from loading. Not to mention everything else it did to get in the way. Every single time! MS should have enabled “white listing” so advanced users could mark apps that are “allowed” to make changes. At least the Mac got that part right.