Turn Off or Disable User Account Control (UAC) in Windows Vista
User Account Control (UAC) is a new security feature in Windows Vista that requires all users to log on and run in standard user privileges mode instead of as administrator with full administrative rights, thus prevent unauthorized or accidental changes that could destabilize the computers or allows virus and malware to exploit the system-level privileges provided to the local administrator to attack the network security, compromise computer safety and privacy, and damage files and settings in the network. However, in a lot of cases, administrator rights are needed by end-users to perform certain tasks such as install or update programs and perform typical system-level task. Beside, many software applications also need administrator privileges to run properly without conflicts, as they are designed to write to system locations during normal operation, and computer in locked-down state in which users operate in standard user mode severely limits user productivity.
In Windows Vista, as and when standard end-user requires administrator privileges to perform certain tasks such as attempting to install an application or write to registry, Windows Vista will prompt a UAC credential prompt to notify the user that a credential of administrator user account is needed for authorization or permission, thus reduce the chance user can accidentally make modifications to vista system files or settings and eliminate the ability for virus or malware to invoke administrator privileges without a user’s knowledge. Even for domain or local administrator, with UAC turns on and enable, most applications, components and processes will run with a limited privilege, but have “elevation potential” or Administrator Approval Mode where administrators must give consent through a User Account Control consent prompt.
User Account Control Administrator Credential Prompt
User Account Control Consent Prompt
However, these security clearance and prompting processes may felt by a lot of users as too troublesome, and sometime annoying especially when you’re the only single user who uses the computer, and has all the latest anti-virus and anti-spyware utilities installed and updated. User Account Control is enabled by default in Windows Vista, so you will have to turn off and disable the User Account Control. However, Microsoft recommends that users do not turn off UAC for security reason.
There are a few ways that you can use to turn off the UAC, but most home and personal users should find method to disable UAC via Control Panel easiest to do.
Method 1 – Using Control Panel
- Click Start and then open Control Panel.
- In the Control Panel, click User Accounts and Family Safety.
- Click User Accounts.
- Click Turn User Account Control on or off.
- Clear the tick or check mark on the box beside the Use User Account Control (UAC) to help protect your computer option.
- Click OK.
- When prompted, restart the computer. Note that the changes will affect all users on the computer.
- To enable the UAC, simply tick or select the checkbox again.
Method 2 – Using Control Panel on Single User
A similar method with method 1, but access to UAC via a user account.
- Click Start and then open Control Panel.
- In the Control Panel, click User Accounts and Family Safety.
- Click on Add or remove user account option.
- Click to select any user account.
- Click Go to the main User Account page.
- Click Change security settings under “Make changes to your user account” section.
- Clear the tick or check mark on the box beside the Use User Account Control (UAC) to help protect your computer option.
- Click OK.
- When prompted, restart the computer. Note that the changes will affect all users on the computer.
- To enable the UAC, simply tick or select the checkbox again.
Method 3 – Using Registry Editor
- Run Registry Editor by typing “regedit” in Start Search or command prompt.
- In Registry Editor, navigate to the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\
CurrentVersion\Policies\System - Locate the following DWORD registry subkey in the right pane:
EnableLUA
- Right click and choose modify or double click on EnableLUA to modify the setting. On valud prompt, set the new value to 0.
- Exit from Registry Editor.
- Restart the computer.
- To enable the UAC again, simply change back the value of EnableLUA to 1.
Method 4 – Using MsConfig System Configuration
- Run MsConfig from Run option.
- In System Configuration window, click on the Tools tab.
- Scroll down and locate “Disable UAP” or “Disable UAC” option item. Click on that line.
- Click the Launch button.
- A command prompt window will open and automatically execute and run certain process to disable UAC.
- Close CMD window when done.
- Close Msconfig.
- Restart computer for changes to apply and effective.
- To re-enable UAC, simply select “Enable UAP” or “Enable UAC” instead of “Disable UAP” or “Disable UAC”, and then click on Launch button.
Method 5 – Using Group Policy
If you’re an IT administrator or system administrator that manages many Windows Vista computers or clients across your computer, group policy can be an effective and easy to mass enable or disable a group of computers. To disable UAC, both Local Group Policy or Active Directory GPO can be used.
- Click Start -> Run.
- Type gpedit.msc and click OK to open the Group Policy Editor.
Note: If you’re using Active Directory Domain GPO which controls many computers, open Group Policy Management Console by click on Start -> Run, then type gpmc.msc and click OK from a Windows Vista computer that is a member of the AD domain. In the Group Policy Management Console (GPMC) window, browse to the respective GPO which is linked and enabled to the OU (organization unit) or domain where the Vista computers are located, then edit it.
- Navigate and browse to Computer Configuration -> Windows Settings -> Security Settings -> Local Policies -> Security Options.
- In the right details pane, locate the User Access Control policies.
- Right click each of the following policies and configure or change the value as indicated below after the dash (-):
* User Account Control: Detect application installations and prompt for elevation – Disabled
* User Account Control: Behavior of the elevation prompt for standard users – No prompt
* User Account Control: Run all administrators in Admin Approval Mode – Disabled - Restart the computer.
Method 6 – TweakUAC
TweakUAC allows users to easily turn on or turn off UAC with a single click, or put UAC into silent mode where all admin users will be auto escalate when needed.
This article has been updated and reposted to Tip and Trick.
Note: After disable and turn off UAC, a little red X shield icon of Windows Security Center comes out in the notification area. Here’s the way to get rid of the icon and notifications.
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Entries (RSS)
June 11th, 2009 22:21
I just wish Microsoft did not feel like it has to hold your hand for every little thing, even with an advanced OS like Server 2008. It would be great if they brought back Microsoft Bob for children, new computer users and those with serious brain injuries, and leave all this annoying fluff out of the OSs that more experienced and/or not-completely-stupid people use.
May 15th, 2009 07:06
[...] select your application. 10. Click Open 11. Click Apply 12. Click Ok 13. Reboot you may also try Turn Off or Disable User Account Control (UAC) in Windows Vista
March 7th, 2009 03:12
This is all fine information, really basic stuff. What I want to know is how to get rid of that annoying Windows Defender warning at system startup, and the red shield with the X in my system tray telling me I have Security Alerts. I use NOD32 wich does not have a firewall, I use windows firewall. I do not want to disable Windows Defender, I want Windows Defender to accept that I do not want to use UAC, ignore that setting and stop warning me about it. Thanks.
October 21st, 2008 05:11
[...] Posted in MS at 9:11 pm by vchaithanya Follow this link http://www.mydigitallife.info/2006/12/19/turn-off-or-disable-user-account-control-uac-in-windows-vis... [...]
September 23rd, 2008 01:01
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August 13th, 2008 18:43
i would like instructions for getting around administrator rights if you have forgotten adminisrator password.
July 8th, 2008 10:46
[...] Disable User Account Control (UAC). [...]
June 21st, 2008 02:57
[...] or program executable, then click on Run as Administrator. Second solution is of course, to disable and turn off UAC once and for [...]
June 18th, 2008 05:22
Isn’t there a way to keep the other Security Center notifications, EXCEPT for UAC? In XP, we could customize which one(s) we wanted to be notified about. I’ll bet there’s some Registry tweak to do this.
March 21st, 2008 22:33
[...] run above command, open an elevated privileges command prompt or disable UAC. The command will re-install system license files, applicable especially you have changed the [...]
January 9th, 2008 22:40
Thanks for this excellent article !
Loïc
December 6th, 2007 07:49
[...] to turn it off then. Turn Off or Disable User Account Control (UAC) in Windows Vista
October 18th, 2007 00:21
[...] Windows Vista, if User Account Control (UAC) is not disabled, there will be occasional need to open an elevated command prompt window with full administrator [...]
October 3rd, 2007 01:25
[...] are many more ways to disable and shut off UAC in Vista. Get help or contribute tips or tricks at My Digital Life [...]
September 27th, 2007 23:56
[...] resolution is either to disable UAC (User Account Control), or run AppLocale as administrator. However, from the Vista Start menu, users are unable to right [...]
August 20th, 2007 08:50
[...] task as an admin. From a usability standpoint, it sucks. So I turned it off. Id explain it how, but My Digital Life does a nicer job and give 6 ways to turn it [...]
August 13th, 2007 21:55
[...] off Protected Mode in IE 7 will expose computer to security risk. For a better solution, try to disable UAC (User Access Control). If it works and there is no longer any no connection error, then enable UAC [...]
August 11th, 2007 15:06
[...] Turn off UAC (you will be prompted if needed). [...]
August 11th, 2007 00:41
[...] account to login to Vista is admin is not subjected to UAC (User Access Control) restriction (see how to disable UAC). How to Enable and Activate Administrator Account in Vista and then Unhide or Show in Welcome [...]
July 25th, 2007 21:32
[...] Windows Vista with regsvr32.exe, you need to have administrator privileges and rights. Unless you have disabled UAC (User Access Control), all user accounts except Administrator that you use to login into Vista will need user to manually [...]
July 16th, 2007 12:40
[...] Disable User Access Control or use TweakUAC to switch UAC off or to Quiet mode. [...]
May 26th, 2007 23:16
[...] TEMP directory, Temporary Internet files directory and recently browsed history. Unless you turn off UAC or disable Protected Mode for IE, in Windows Vista, most of the cache, temporary files, cookies and [...]
May 26th, 2007 02:13
[...] installation problem is likely caused by User Account Control security measure. If you turn off User Account Control, the error likely to go away and AppLocale can be installed properly. However, here is another [...]
May 25th, 2007 02:13
[...] the files, you’ll encounter access denied error even though you are administrator and have disabled UAC or already in elevation mode for the application trying to access. In this case, users will [...]
May 23rd, 2007 20:13
[...] right clicking on the executable and then select “Run as Administrator”. Better still, turn off UAC before installing, and only turn UAC back on after completing [...]
May 1st, 2007 01:44
[...] of the new feature in Windows Vista is User Access Control (see how to disable UAC) which provides a protected or locked-down user environment that requires user permission before [...]
April 25th, 2007 11:43
[...] elevated command prompt (or disable UAC), type the following [...]
April 23rd, 2007 02:09
[...] are many possible way to turn off or turn on User Access Control (UAC) in Windows Vista, which frequently pop up a confirmation dialog window to asking for [...]
April 20th, 2007 18:10
[...] Turn off User Access Control (UAC) feature in Windows Vista is probably a bad idea as it may compromises the system security, and also breaks IE7 protected mode. However, with UAC on, users will always be prompted with dialog box of “A program needs your permission to continue” or “Windows need your permission to continue” whenever system needs to elevate to state with administrator’s rights to perform system changes, which is pretty annoying. [...]
April 17th, 2007 13:49
[...] Disable User Access Control. [...]
March 23rd, 2007 06:07
[...] Desactivar el User Access Control. [...]
March 18th, 2007 12:00
[...] can manually turn off and turn on User Access Control (UAC) feature in Windows Vista. TweakUAC will make this task easier. TweakUAC is a free software [...]
March 16th, 2007 23:22
I feel dumb for having to look this up, but have only has Vista for a few days…
Thank you so much for posting it!
Ps. If Vista is still annoying, I’m going back to Xp!
March 15th, 2007 23:09
[...] above. Click on the “regedit” in the search result. Click on Continue button if any User Account Control dialog window appears with security warning and asking for confirmation and permission to [...]
March 15th, 2007 03:47
[...] Desactivar el User Access Control. [...]
March 12th, 2007 02:56
[...] then select “All Programs” -> “Accessories” -> “Command Promt”. You may need to turn of UAC or open command prompt with administrator [...]
March 10th, 2007 18:34
[...] Programs” -> “Accessories” -> “Command Promt”. You may need to turn of UAC or open command prompt with administrator [...]
March 4th, 2007 17:52
[...] Disable User Access Control. [...]
March 4th, 2007 12:17
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January 29th, 2007 03:20
[...] though some members would like this if they are getting fed up of the pop up windows all the time Turn Off or Disable User Account Control (UAC) in Windows Vista Use with Caution __________________ Ray Some Advice.. Its always advisable to inform your old [...]
January 19th, 2007 11:06
[...] Note that you need to run the Vista Codec Package installer as administrator, or turn off the Vista UAC if you install the codec pack in Windows Vista. Or else you will have error 1303 insufficient privileges to access this directory error. [...]
January 18th, 2007 23:17
[...] If User Account Control (UAC) prompt a warning message, click on “Continue”. [...]
January 15th, 2007 21:06
[...] Good news is that you can disable or turn off Data Execution Prevention (DEP) globally in Windows Vista. To stop the DEP protection, launch an elevated command prompt shell with administrative priviledges and credentials (log on to Windows Vista with a user account with administrator rights, and then right click on Command Prompt icon and select “Run as Administrator, or turn off UAC). Then execute the following command: [...]
January 7th, 2007 03:22
[...] Disable User Access Control (UAC). [...]
December 26th, 2006 13:10
[...] Right click on “Vista Reset.exe” and select “Run As Administrator”. Alternatively you can disable UAC. [...]