UAC is a great security enhancement to Windows Vista (over XP) but you know, it can be rather annoying too! As an administrator, I use certain programs that require me to “Run as Administrator” – such as command prompt, computer management, and others. Thanks to the HowToGeek, here are 4 ways to make your vista experience better…
**Note: Disabling and/or modifying UAC may put your system at risk. To be the most secure, leave UAC at default settings.
1: Disable UAC completely via Command line:
Disable UAC:
C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /k %windir%\System32\reg.exe ADD HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System /v EnableLUA /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f
Enable UAC:
C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe /k %windir%\System32\reg.exe ADD HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System /v EnableLUA /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f
2: Disable for Administrators Only
To configure this setting on Windows Vista Business and Ultimate, you can use the Local Security Policy configuration. Just type in secpol.msc into the Start menu search box and hit enter.
Now browse down to Local Policies \ Security Options
Find the following in the list: “User Account Control: Behavior of the elevation prompt for administrators in Admin Approval Mode” and double-click on it.
Change the setting to “Elevate without prompting”. You should be all done.
<< Download Registry Tweak >>
3: Disable Screen Dimming
UAC itself is a good thing – but on some video cards, it seems to take forever for the screen dimming to pop, and prompt you. So, this is my personal favorite – keep the security, but get rid of the dimming:
<< Download Registry Tweak >>
4: Create Specific shortcuts that don’t prompt for UAC
This is quite a nice little trick. You want UAC, you want Desktop Dimming, but you just have one program that you run all the time that you don’t want to prompt you for UAC. This is for you…
Open up Task Scheduler (Start, Search box, type task), and then on the right-hand side click the “Create Task” link:
Enter a name for the task, and check the box for “Run with highest privileges”
Click the Actions tab, choose New, and enter the path to the program you want to run.
Choose OK button to close. Right click the task, and choose “Run” – just to make sure that you have done it correctly, and it doesn’t prompt for UAC.
Create the Shortcut to Start the Task
Right-click anywhere on the desktop and choose New, Shortcut
Enter the following: schtasks /run /tn “TASKNAMEINQUOTES”
As you can see, I used Command Prompt as the name for the task.
Give your shortcut a meaningful name, and then click next to finish.
You now have a shortcut that will launch your application in administrator mode without prompting you for UAC!
I’m a bit anal, and don’t like that generic icon, so right click on the shortcut, choose properties, and then Change Icon. Also, change the Run drop-down to “Minimized” (to hide the schtasks command line utility).
The simplest thing to do is just browse down to the application that you are opening with the shortcut… and you should see the icons for the application itself.
So now you have a nice looking icon that launches an application in Administrator mode… with no prompts whatsoever.
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