Make your Vista's admin account acts like in XP

[+jamesyfx Subscriber²]

Wonderful guide.

Curious though, is there any way to remove the "run as administrator" function on context menus, since there's no longer any use for it(Or is there)?

If It involves resource hacking, it doesn't matter. I want to leave my Vista 'un-hacked'. >.>

[Tantawi]

@bradavon: I still can't figure out how to do that too. I added the bit about IE7 to the first post, I didn't notice it since I don't use IE :D thanks a lot.

@neospyce: Thanks for the link!

@Sniper101 & jamesyfx: You're welcome! :) I don't think there's a way to remove "Run as admin", but if you found a way let us know ;)

[Herby]

Wonderful guide.

Curious though, is there any way to remove the "run as administrator" function on context menus, since there's no longer any use for it(Or is there)?

If It involves resource hacking, it doesn't matter. I want to leave my Vista 'un-hacked'. >.>

Merge "RunAsAdmin_Exe-.reg" to remove the "Run as Administrator" Context Menu Item from all exe files.

Merge "RunAsAdmin_Exe+.reg" if you want to restore the "Run as Administrator" Context Menu Item.

RunAsAdmin.zip

I created these regfiles for the Take Ownership Context Menu Item.

? ?

More info @ Vista - Tips, Tricks & Tweaks:):)

[Tantawi]

Perfect Herby (Y). Thanks.

[solardog]

Merge "RunAsAdmin_Exe-.reg" to remove the "Run as Administrator" Context Menu Item from all exe files.

Merge "RunAsAdmin_Exe+.reg" if you want to restore the "Run as Administrator" Context Menu Item.

RunAsAdmin.zip

I created these regfiles for the Take Ownership Context Menu Item.

More info @ Vista - Tips, Tricks & Tweaks. :)

Sweet.

Heres a nice little tool:

http://www.tweak-uac.com/

[+jamesyfx Subscriber²]

Absolutely brilliant. Much appreciated!

[Barry Gurung]

thnks

this is really helpful

[Gabriel]

Thanks man, nice thread! Thanks for the excellent tutorial.

[bradavon]

@bradavon: I still can't figure out how to do that too. I added the bit about IE7 to the first post, I didn't notice it since I don't use IE :D thanks a lot.

No worries, glad I could help. If you like you can delete my ramblings above the main point of my post. The important part is when I discuss DropMyRights.

I too don't use IE but on occasion you have to when the site isn't FF compatible, or the you come across the odd site that uses ActiveX.

[Phil K]

Is there a way to REVERSE this ?

I must admit, I've rarely used the "Administrator" log in, and only then by accident.

I'd like to go straight to my Phil K account.

How do I get shot of this ?

[Tantawi]

Is there a way to REVERSE this ?

I must admit, I've rarely used the "Administrator" log in, and only then by accident.

I'd like to go straight to my Phil K account.

How do I get shot of this ?

Yes there's!

1- Click Start, and type "cmd" in the search area, right click on "Command Prompt" and select 'Run as Administrator".

2- In the command prompt type "net users Administrator /active:no" (Note the capital "A" in Administrator) and press Enter, you will get a confirmation as "The command completed successfully".

Reboot and it'll go to the active account directly :)

Welcome everyone.

[solardog]

Yes there's!

1- Click Start, and type "cmd" in the search area, right click on "Command Prompt" and select 'Run as Administrator".

2- In the command prompt type "net users Administrator /active:no" (Note the capital "A" in Administrator) and press Enter, you will get a confirmation as "The command completed successfully".

Reboot and it'll go to the active account directly :)

Welcome everyone.

Cool. New little bit there.

[Phil K]

Yes there's!

1- Click Start, and type "cmd" in the search area, right click on "Command Prompt" and select 'Run as Administrator".

2- In the command prompt type "net users Administrator /active:no" (Note the capital "A" in Administrator) and press Enter, you will get a confirmation as "The command completed successfully".

Reboot and it'll go to the active account directly :)

Welcome everyone.

Worked beautifully.

Thanks !

[sevastopol]

cool, thanks!!

[Alucard_X]

thx for the information.

now i just gotta figure out why Vista powered down (or sleep?) my PC last nite even though I put it on high-performance. stupid power management.

[James Heath]

maybe someone could post some reg tweaks for the above keys, so that we can just copy and paste them into notepad and save them as .reg files, would be very handy:)!

I know that the point of this tutorial is to move the annoying messages that warn you about almost every top level action you attempt, but after careful consideration, I think it's a good idea to be warned. Windows XP (mostly before SP2), was a completely in-secure file system with regards to administrative permissions. User accounts in both the Home and Professional editions of Windows XP were by default given administrative permissions over the system they presided in.

I think Microsoft has made a smart move by ensuring that users aren't able to harm them-selves. I understand there are those of you out there who are obviously careful and cautious enough to be able to take care of yourselves, but the majority is often the dumber fraction. ;)

[Gamerhomie]

Too bad that while being the admin you can't make another account an admin. Even though my account is labeled as an admin, I don't get full privileges. :p

[rabarbara]

Wonderful guide, thanks to all of you...

[Wal-mart]

You are the man, Evrywhere i go Tantawi is the Best!

[and1direct]

Hey :)

This doesnt seem to work very well. Everytime I try to copy and then paste something in Program Files it never allows me even if I say yes to the UAC prompt. While in my original admin account when I installed Vista, I could.

Why?

[funciona]

Just set the shortcut for each Internet enabled program to use it and make sure you choose Open "Minimised" and it's seamless.

This is the only thing I dont like :(

Can't you set it to run on start up and be done with it?

[funciona]

After applying this

If I run a .exe, does it run the same as Right Click-Run As Admin but without the UAC popup?

If I want this mode but still want the UAC popup, is there a fix?

[funciona]

Hello Tantawi, thanks for the welcome.

Thanks for that reg fix. It looks like it adds a context menu which dumps you at a DOS command prompt. It's a start but I'd prefer a Full Admin account like XP.

Even if I didn't use it all the time it would be nice to know it's possible. For example I've not worked out how to be able to rename files in the WINDOWS\SYSTEM32 folder (unless I take ownership of that too) which you may need to do if you need to delete/rename a system file.

Has anyone worked how to do this? Surely it's possible. I believe the difference here is the Administrator account (the proper one) in Vista still doesn't own certain folders, they're owned by the SYSTEM account (which cannot logged in with) as opposed XP where you own each and every folder.

That thread is great though, it's chocker block with goodies. I'll have to get reading :D

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Can I suggest you add a disclaimer to your first post explaining disabling UAC takes Vista's IE7 Protected Mode with it.

This basically lowers IE7 to a Limited User (lower than the Semi-Admin you're logged in with). This is something IE7 users may not be aware of, even if you enable Protected Mode from Internet Options it stays disabled (just like UAC). There is a fix however.

If you want UAC disabled but Protected Mode on use DropMyRights which was written for XP but works just the same in Vista (I tested it last night), not only that but using it actually turns Protected Mode back on (i.e - instead of saying Protected Mode: Off it will say On). Therefore proving Protected Mode and DropMyRights are on and the same thing.

What is DropMyRights I hear you say, read on: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms972827.aspx

It was written by a Microsoft bloke but isn't officially supported. I use the /c switch to make it even more secure. I've been using it for months and bar ActiveX installs (which need admin rights) not one website has fallen over. You can prove it works by trying to save a file into the SYSTEM32 folder, it won't let you.

The great thing is it's completely seamless, works on XP or Vista (probably 2000 too) and lets you get the good bits out of UAC without the bad. Just set the shortcut for each Internet enabled program to use it and make sure you choose Open "Minimised" and it's seamless.

I tried this but it always gives me a invalid path....

it says C:\programs doesnt exist.

[kevinarjun]

Thanx for all the info m8...

[Chrysalis]

yeah currently I use a real admin account with no UAC at all however I think UAC is a good idea as it follows the unix motto of trying to keep things running in limited priviledge mode. So I do plan at some point to move back to a UAC environment on my vista box and work around the non admin mode problems I had.