With Windows Vista now shipping, and available on store shelves in a couple days, many people will soon be having their first Vista experiences. If it’s not a positive experience, chances are it’s because of User Account Control. While it’s probably Vista’s strongest security feature, its also ranks at the top of common annoyances. This is never more true then when setting up and configuring a new system. It may seem as if you’re faced with a never ending stream of nagging, “A program needs your permission to continue” prompts.
We encourage everyone to leave UAC enabled. It will make your system more secure, and will become less annoying the more you use it. However, many people will be looking for a way turn off User Account Control. Others may find it helpful to disable UAC while setting up and configuring a new Windows Vista system. Either way, we?ve found a safer way to disable the UAC prompts, while still maintaining some of the security.
Browsing the Internet shows no shortage of articles for turning off UAC. There are guides for using msconfig, regedit, group policies, and the control panel. They all accomplish the same thing, they disable UAC, completely. We prefer a method that just gets rid of the prompts, but more importantly retains “protected mode” in Internet Explorer. Most malware, viruses and trojans are using the browser as a gateway to your system, and IE 7 running in protected mode defeats those attempts.
1. Open the Local Security Policy manager by clicking Start, type secpol.msc, hit enter (or click the secpol.msc icon).
2. Navigate through Security Settings -> Local Policies -> Security Options. In the rightmost pane, scroll to the bottom and double-click ?User Account Control: Behavior of the elevation prompt for administrators in Admin Approval Mode?, select Elevate without prompting, click OK.
For more detailed instructions, view: A safer way to disable User Account Control prompts @ geekstogo.com
