Disable UAC(User Access Control) in Windows Vista
UAC is a security feature in Windows Vista that is designed to make sure you want to do certain tasks. UAC requires permission to perform all of the following tasks:
• Changes to system-wide settings or to files in %SystemRoot% or %ProgramFiles%
• Installing and uninstalling applications
• Installing device drivers
• Installing ActiveX controls
• Changing settings for Windows Firewall
• Changing UAC settings
• Configuring Windows Update
• Adding or removing user accounts
• Changing a user’s account type
• Configuring Parental Controls
• Running Task Scheduler
• Restoring backed-up system files
• Viewing or changing another user’s folders and files
Many users have asked if and how they can disable this from prompting them every time they want to do these tasks. This tutorial will walk you through disabling it.
To start you will want to click on the Start orb and type msconfig into the box for it to find what you are looking for (alternatively if you use the classic start menu, click on run and type msconfig and press enter).
The above window will appear. This is the configuration setting for a lot of Windows components and features. We will not want to click on the tools tab to open the section with our UAC settings.
This is the tools tab. This tab allows you access to some pre built scripts and features of the Windows Operating System.
Scroll down until you see Disable UAC. Click on it once and click the Launch button at the bottom of the screen.
The above window will appear to let you know that is has completed successfully or give you any error it may have encountered. That is all there is to it. As you may have noticed, there is also an option to Enable UAC which will allow you to turn it back on if you decide you would like to. I hope this tutorial was easy to follow and thanks for reading.
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on May 15th, 2009 at 1:48 am
thanks….
on June 22nd, 2009 at 2:21 pm
I have Microsoft Outlook installed and I only want me to be able to access it. So how can I make the User Account Control (UAC) come up to ask me for administrator permission when I want to open Microsoft Outlook 2003? I have Windows Vista Ultimate.
on August 10th, 2009 at 6:44 am
This is a very useful tip but you have to be careful that you know what you’re doing otherwise you could accidentally mess up your PC (you can rely on system restore to some extent though).
on September 5th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
Man I had a horrible time trying to take this off. Thank you for this info.
on September 8th, 2009 at 9:10 pm
yes, UAC is a disputed function in windows vista, it is a little troublesome for people….so lots users turn it off, but in win7 ,it has been improved already…..
on September 19th, 2009 at 5:33 pm
UAC was so annoying on my laptop and started giving me tons of errors with image thumbnails, I eventually had to disable all thumbnails. Maybe I will just try to disable UAC completely.
on October 23rd, 2009 at 1:00 pm
You can only disable it system wide. You can do so under Control Panel -> User Accounts. There is an option there that says “Turn off User Account Protection”. Then you’ll also want to disable or turn off the Security Center notifications which is also in the Control Panel.
on January 9th, 2010 at 11:30 am
Many Thanks for this great tutorial.
on February 4th, 2010 at 3:20 am
These will be fixed, eventually. I think a good alternative to Windows Vista is Ubuntu Linux. I love it, and I use it more than Windows. And its completely free! Google “download ubuntu.
on February 13th, 2010 at 12:58 am
All versions of Vista require activation. However, if you purchase a retail copy of Vista, Microsoft has special licensing programs so you can install it on other computers.