First let me start by saying that one of the main features of Windows Vista is the new user accounts security enhancements, but sometimes, defaults don't meet everyone's taste when it comes to how we deal with our PCs. I for one, always used full administrator accounts since I first knew what a Windows user account is, and never been hit by a virus/spyware/crap, using common sense and updated AV software, so I don't want to give permissions to myself or face strange error messages every time I do a simple task on my computer.

We know UAC feature in Windows Vista, and we all know how to disable it, this is not the purpose of this thread, because even after you disable UAC, you'll have other prompts about folder/file permissions errors sometimes (I faced it in strange, unexpected occasions, like deleting an empty folder for a program left by the uninstaller), or you'll need to right click and select "Run as Administrator" for most applications to work/install correctly.

That's because Microsoft made the administrators accounts (in local administrators group) run as standard users, unless we give permissions for every and each administrative tasks, with a little difference when UAC is turned on/off

Enough introductions, lets get our hands dirty:

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Remember that cute "Administrator" account you see when you login to safe mode in XP? That's the built-in administrator account that's installed by default, and disabled by default too, after a little digging-in I made this tutorial that'll let you enable and use this account in normal mode, and with a little other tweak, enjoying an XP-like administrator experience, while UAC is left ON (or off, it doesn't matter), but with no prompts or right clicks.

For Windows Vista Ultimate/Business/Enterprise:

1- Click Start, and type "secpol.msc" in the search area and click Enter. (You may receive a prompt from UAC, approve/login and proceed)
2- In the left list, choose "Local Policies", then "Security Options"
3- Set "Accounts: Administrator account status" to Enabled.
4- Set "User Account Control: Admin Approval Mode for the Built-in Administrator account" to Disabled.

For Windows Vista Home Basic/Home Premium:

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:yes" (Note the capital "A" in Administrator) and press Enter, you will get a confirmation as "The command completed successfully".

3- Click Start, and type "regedit" in the search area and click Enter, navigate to: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System]
Double click on "FilterAdministratorToken" and set it to "0"

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Now log-off, and you'll see new account named "Administrator" is available, click on it to login.

Now you are the master of your domain! I recommend if you're going to use this method is to apply it as soon as you do a fresh install of Windows, so you can simply delete whatever administrator you've created in the setup process, and make this one the "real" administrator for your PC, also you can rename this new admin account or change its password like any other account from "User Accounts" in the Control Panel.

A last note/disclaimer:

Please note that disabling UAC and using the built in Adminstrator account will also disable IE7 "Protected Mode", fore more information and a work around please see this post.

Please apply this procedures only if you know what you're doing. Disabling security features in the operating system is not something recommended to the average Joe, and for sure I won't be held accountable for any damaging happens to your system or files resulting from running a full administrator account all the time.

Enjoy!

Special thanks to:
- Farstrider for providing the location of the relevant register keys that made applying this method to the home versions of Vista possible!.
- bradavon for his comment/solution of IE7 protected mode.

That's great no more annoying messages

thanx mate , been looking for this for so long

Thanks man, nice thread! I'm glad that you figure this out.

Thanks a lot, helped me lots =)

Thanks so much for this! I actually reinstalled xp because of the way vista handled this, yes I hated it that much. Thanks again!

the built in admin account, iirc, has some perms that your normal admins dont, but it also lacks some perms that your normal admins do. at least in XP it was like this....anyone confirm?

excellent post. been looking for something like this for a long time

***** < five stars. great job.

By default the administrator account does not have permission to access the files of other users if the others users are configured to make their files private (I'm basing this on my domain controller setup but I believe its the same for local accounts)

But as an administrator, you can take ownership of the files and then change the permissions.

And of course if other users encrypt their files then the admin account can't access them.

Vista appears to be the same.

Nice ! Thanks !

Thanks for the info, glad someone figured it out and posted!

Welcome everyone

Vista Home Premium says it can't find "secpol.msc"
Now what??

You can also use gpedit.msc

secpol.msc's items are a subset of gpedit.msc


You can also adjust the settings in the registry here:

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\Policies\System]

These are the main keys that affect UAC, equivalent to the secpol.msc
settings.

"ConsentPromptBehaviorAdmin"
"ConsentPromptBehaviorUser"
"EnableInstallerDetection"
"EnableLUA"
"EnableSecureUIAPaths"
"EnableVirtualization"
"PromptOnSecureDesktop"
"ValidateAdminCodeSignatures"
"FilterAdministratorToken"

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:)!

Nice work, but why would someone use the Administrator account?
I've just turned off UAC and have my own user with Administrator privileges.

That was even less work then this solution...

because of some popup messages and some programs wont even run like the bios flash utility for my hp laptop, it wont even work when you choose "run as administrator".

I found out how to do this myself. The hard thing was finding out how to uninstall programs.... Why did they have to rename it?

Suppose i use this method. I currently don't have to log onto my computer, it just boots to windows. After doing this change will i be prompted choose a user to log in with as there would be 2 users and i would then have to log in?

If it does create a log in after i deleate the old admin account will the log in process go away (assuming that i don't use a password for the new admin)?

Yes, that's why I recommend to do it as soon as you install a fresh window so you don't be worried about deleting the admin account you created in the setup process After you delete it, you'll login automatically as long as you don't set a password of course.

Nice guide,but I can only access to this settings via registry in vista home basic.
I like to ask which one number we must past here in this lines?

Yeah, on my Vista Home Premium, I have neither secpol.msc OR gpedit.msc available. NOW WHAT??

That makes absolutely no sense. There's no split token when you disable UAC via that dialog. The "Run As Administrator" option should have no effect at all.

The only time you'd have to do that would be if you disable UAC by setting admins to auto-elevate (as I suggested in another thread).

@ Brandon Live

I'm curious to know your opinion on:

thanks for the info!

Using Vista Home Premium: No Items Match Your Search

same here

Great share. About to do a fresh install--just what is needed! THANKS!

Thanks for the tip!

Unfortunately I jumped the gun and didn't read the entire thread and went ahead and created a new Admin Account but preferred it when Vista would boot up and load straight away (without picking an account). My newbie question is how do I delete the *new* Admin account..? I have tried to do it and the option is not there. I can delete my old Admin Account but would rather not.

Thanks in advance!

Home edition doesn't come with these features in Vista as well as XP.

As far as I know you can't delete the new admin account since it's the main computer adminstrator, the only way to enjoy the XP's admin experience AND in the same time the straight login, is by deleting your old admin account.

If you want to revert everything as it was, you just revert the steps you did " bu setting disabled to enabled etc".

Thanks again! This solved my problem...You're great!!

You're welcome Hypnautica!

And the big news: The guide has been updated to provide the required steps for Vista Home Basic/Home Premium! Enjoy

Dude, you rock! You are da MAN! Seriously tho, thanks.

is not being in administrator account 24/7 really that bothersome? I know the UAC is with no doubt but I haven't had very many issues so far.

I don't really know if this would be the best solution though, surely there is a way of enabling this type of functionality to any account that is a member of administrator via Manage?

Thanx a lot Tantawi for your update Home Basic guide!

Thanks again Tantawi!

I did a clean install with my Ultimate key and followed your instruction's and I haven't seen a UAC prompt or anything like it yet. I'm in full control all the time like it should be. Cheers from Canada Mate!

Welcome again Hypnautica! Glad you sorted it out well

I just found this on Microsoft Technet


http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/windows...a/aa906022.aspx

That's true bolix, and this thread is for enabling in normal and safe mode.

Well... basically that deactivates UAC, doesn't it?

Alternatively one could also use Run --> msconfig --> Tools --> Deactivate User Account Control
Better method imho

MrFujim it seems you didn't read the first post , as I clearly stated...



After this method, we're restoring the exact functionality of XP's administrator account to Vista, UAC will not prompts for anything even if it's left ON, because your administrator account will be in control for everything and elevated by default (as in XP).

Woops... *cough* *cough*

Well, ehm, nevermind

You sir are a life saver. Thnx to your tut I've been able to take back control of my Vista pc never to lose it AGAIN!!!

Thnx for your brillance and

Greeeeeetz

Thank you thank you thank you thank you x infinity.

I won't be upgrading my desktop to Vista for quite a while (the benefits of it that I would use don't justify it's price to me. Plus I'll wait for other people to test it). Not to mention I can't imagine torturing my beautifully built PC with it.

However, I got a laptop today. And it came with Vista Home. After tweaking it a while, installing programs on it and getting quite irritated that some things wouldn't install or work even with run as Administrator and UVAC turned off. I remembered this guide I read earlier. So now I'm running it as the real admin and I have to redo everything again. -_-. But at least the things irritating me before when it was giving me problems aren't anymore.

On a sidenote. I wish you could build laptops.. this Vaio came with so much junk installed -_-. I'd buy a bare bones one but my dad wanted one where he could pay it off in a monthly plan with no interest for a certain amount of time.

God this is like saying you want to always run as ROOT in linux 24/7.


Something that about 100% of security experts will tell you to NEVER do.

Of course the majority of security experts assume the user doesn't know what he/she is doing. True it's better to run as a limited user. Though I disliked being hassled or taking an extra step in getting my desktop or laptop to do what I want it to do.

I do run as a limited user in Linux however, and that's simply because in Linux I do alot of tweaking and messing around. Which normally means I can screw something up. But for Windows computers, the damage I could do is pretty minor. And as for security threats. Well last time I was infected with anything was back in the 1990s. And that's because I was a kid, playing a game and not knowing alot about computers. And someone sent me a trojan just so they could get into that account.

Much more wiser now.

thanks for the excellent tutorial.

This is exactly what I thought...

Seems like some people always need to complain, XP was not save becouse you work as administrator, now they solved that issue and now they are complaining again!

Microsoft has build in this feature not to attack their users but to defend them, so those people who do work as administrator in Vista all day long shouldn't complain about Windows as soon they got malware and stuff on their computer.

I'm also not too happy with the UAC, its quite anoying when you want to cleanup your start/programs, but if this helps to keep the OS clean and stabil i'm happy.

Make your Vista's admin account acts like in XP, Always in full control

Funny that made me laugh.

Make your Vista's admin account acts like in XP, You and Virus attacks are Always in full control.



In XP I used to run as Limited User. It was a pain to create batch files and various tools to get Limited User to perform some tasks as Admin. With UAC in Vista all this trouble is gone. Whenever Admin access is required it just pops up.



I have also enabled Administrator account from Computer Management



which is another way to enable Administrator account in Vista/XP.