Setting Up User Access Controls - Windows Vista Access Permissions

Setting Up User Access Controls - Windows Vista Access Permissions
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Do you really think that the User Account Control is a useless feature?

Let us explore the newly added UAC feature in Windows Vista. Many of us don’t know what UAC is capable of doing and consider it as a useless feature that has been added to Vista unnecessarily. There are a lot of people who consider User Account Control (UAC) as one of the biggest drawbacks of Windows Vista.

But this is a misconception as UAC is an instructive tool. Every time you open a non-user setting there is a security warning or a prompt that asks your permission. This is predictable and the user gets used to it, but it can be very annoying sometimes. Hence most of the users try to turn it off at the earliest opportunity.

This is a big mistake because not only does UAC provide security to your PC, but also it is the power behind Internet Explorer’s Protected Mode (a very handy security bonus in itself for those who use IE regularly). UAC is also the power behind several other features in Windows Vista and disabling it can make you lose all of them. Also without UAC your system may even develop mysterious new unbalances that might be difficult to repair in the future. So I would recommend the users to make it sure that the UAC is turned ON at all times.

UAC is the best security feature a user can have, but as far as the useless prompts are concerned and if you really want to get rid of them (although I won’t recommend this), here is a solution to that problem. Bur this advice is only for users who want to take a risk and tamper with the Registry Editor to get rid of the prompts.

Launch Regedit (the registry editor) and go to

HKEY _ LOCAL _ MACHINE\ SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ policies\ System

Now double click on ConsentPromptBehaviorAdmin in the right hand pane, and set its value to 0 (use 2 later to restore the default setting), and click OK.

After you complete doing this you will observe that you don’t get any more of those annoying alerts, and at the same time UAC will con­tinue to run in the background. Hence you no longer be asked again and again to prompt for everything you try to run and also benefit from Internet Explorer Protected Mode and its other useful features. Try this and you don’t have to go through the never ending prompts ever again.

Caution: Tampering with your Registry to turn OFF these prompts may be a security risk for your PC.

This post is part of the series: Taming Windows Vista

There is an old saying that nothing is born perfect. Same goes with Vista too, as this new Windows isn’t perfect at all. Some drawbacks are easier to spot and can be fixed to provide ultimate perfection. In this series, I have tried to find out what Windows Vista lacks and how to fill these spaces.

  1. Taming Windows Vista - Poor Performance Tweaks
  2. Taming Windows Vista - Optimize Your Windows Interface
  3. Taming Windows Vista - Security Options
  4. Taming Windows Vista - Backup & Recovery Solutions
  5. Taming Windows Vista - Bundled Applications & Add-ons
  6. Taming Windows Vista - User Access Control
  7. Taming Windows Vista - Installing the Latest Windows Updates
  8. Taming Windows Vista - Restore, Monitor Management & More
  9. Taming Windows Vista - Media Burning, Remote Access & More
  10. Taming Windows Vista - Sample Registry Tweaks & More