Make your Vista's admin account acts like in XP


Recommended Posts

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:

*************************************

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 ""

*************************************

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.

Edited by Tantawi
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?

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.

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"

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".

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)?

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.

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"

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?

), or you'll need to right click and select "Run as Administrator" for most applications to work/install correctly.

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:

Remember that cute "Administrator" account you see when you login to safe mode? 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.

1- Click Start, and type "secpol.msc" in the search area and click Enter.

2- You may receive a prompt from UAC, approve/login and proceed.

3- In the left list, choose "Local Policies", then "Security Options"

4- Set "Accounts: Administrator account status" to Enabled.

5- Set "User Account Control: Admin Approval Mode for the Built-in Administrator account" to Disabled.

6- Now log-off, and you'll see a new account named "Administrator" will be 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 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.

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Posts

    • GitHub removes manual model selection from Copilot free and student plans by Karthik Mudaliar GitHub is removing the ability to manually select an AI model from its Copilot Free and Student plans, making its automatic routing system the default and only way to choose a model. This means users on these tiers will no longer be able to deliberately select a particular OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, or Microsoft model for a task. In its announcement, GitHub said Copilot Auto will dynamically choose what it considers the best model for each request. Free and Student accounts will retain access to models from multiple families, although the available selection will continue to depend on the restrictions attached to each plan. GitHub did not identify a fixed pool of models that Auto will always use, and its documentation warns that model availability can change over time. GitHub describes Auto as more than a random fallback system. On supported surfaces, its task-optimization technology evaluates the complexity of a request alongside real-time information about model health and availability. Straightforward prompts can be routed to faster and less expensive models, while more demanding coding tasks may be sent to higher-cost reasoning models. The company says this approach should reduce rate limiting, latency, and failed requests. Auto generally selects one model along natural prompt-caching boundaries rather than repeatedly switching models during a session, as GitHub found that mid-session changes increased costs without producing sufficient improvements in output quality. Users can still check which model generated a response. In Copilot Chat, the information appears when hovering over an answer, while Copilot CLI and the Copilot cloud agent display the selected model alongside their output. Auto is available in Copilot Chat, Copilot CLI, and the cloud agent, with the exact implementation and release status varying between supported development environments. The latest restriction follows several months of adjustments to Copilot’s individual plans. GitHub temporarily halted new Pro, Pro+, and Student subscriptions in April as it sought to manage demand and service reliability. It later introduced token-based billing and began gradually reopening individual-plan registrations on June 17. Alongside the picker change, GitHub is retiring the “Preview” label from Microsoft-developed models. It argues that the label is no longer necessary because Auto handles model routing and models are continuously updated behind the scenes.
    • Look up 'inflation' kid. Ask an AI for the numbers between both games.
    • Google reportedly set to lose two key Gemini and DeepMind researchers to Anthropic by Karthik Mudaliar Google is reportedly preparing to lose two more prominent artificial intelligence researchers, with Gemini contributors Jonas Adler and Alexander Pritzel planning to join rival AI developer Anthropic. According to a report from Bloomberg, both researchers are viewed internally as important contributors to Google’s flagship Gemini model family. Adler worked on Google’s AI coding efforts, while Pritzel was involved in the process used to train AI systems. Neither company has publicly confirmed the moves. The report also does not say when the researchers will formally leave Google or what positions they will hold at Anthropic. Training a large AI model requires decisions covering its architecture, data preparation, distributed computing infrastructure, and post-training methods that shape how the finished system behaves. Researchers with experience operating at the scale of Gemini are consequently difficult to replace quickly. Both Adler and Pritzel have previously contributed to Google DeepMind’s scientific research as well. They are listed among the authors of the company’s work on expanding AlphaFold protein-structure predictions across entire proteomes, alongside AlphaFold researchers including John Jumper. The reported departures arrive shortly after another important change within Google’s Gemini organization. Gemini co-lead Noam Shazeer is leaving Google for OpenAI, after returning to the search company in 2024 through its deal with Character.AI. Shazeer is particularly well known as one of the authors of the Transformer paper, whose architecture became the foundation for most modern large language models. Anthropic, meanwhile, has been recruiting recognizable figures from other leading laboratories. OpenAI co-founder and former Tesla AI director Andrej Karpathy joined Anthropic’s pre-training team in May. His move, followed by the reported recruitment of several Google researchers, suggests Anthropic is strengthening the research teams responsible for the core capabilities of future Claude models rather than concentrating solely on product and enterprise sales. The competition is complicated by the companies’ extensive commercial relationships. Anthropic competes directly with Google’s Gemini models, but it also relies on Google as an infrastructure partner. In April, Anthropic announced an expanded agreement with Google and Broadcom covering multiple gigawatts of next-generation Tensor Processing Unit capacity. TPUs are Google-designed accelerators used to train and run large AI models. via Bloomberg
    • This article makes my head hurt. Lots of confusing words
    • Google adds built-in computer control to Gemini 3.5 flash by Karthik Mudaliar Google has added Computer Use as a built-in tool in Gemini 3.5 Flash, giving developers a single model that can reason about a task and operate graphical interfaces across browsers, mobile devices, and desktop environments. The feature is available through the Gemini API and Google’s Gemini Enterprise Agent Platform, although it remains a preview feature for now. Computer Use enables an AI agent to examine screenshots and return actions such as mouse clicks, scrolling, and keyboard input. A developer’s application must execute those actions, capture the resulting screen, and send it back to Gemini, creating a continuous loop until the task is completed. Google says the integration can be used for activities including repetitive form filling, application testing, research across multiple websites, and longer enterprise workflows. Gemini 3.5 Flash can work with browser, mobile, and desktop environments, whereas Google’s earlier standalone Computer Use model was primarily positioned around browser interaction. The main change is consolidation. Computer control was previously offered through the separate Gemini 2.5 Computer Use preview model. As Neowin reported when that model was introduced, it was designed to interpret a visual interface and generate actions without requiring a website-specific API. Google later brought Computer Use to preview versions of Gemini 3 Pro and Gemini 3 Flash in January 2026. The latest release now incorporates the tool into the stable Gemini 3.5 Flash model rather than requiring developers to select a specialized model solely for interface automation. Gemini 3.5 Flash itself was announced in May as Google’s latest fast model for coding and multi-step agent workflows. It supports a one-million-token input context window and up to 65,000 output tokens, along with adjustable thinking levels that let developers trade additional reasoning for lower latency and cost. Google also added that Gemini 3.5 Flash received targeted adversarial training for computer-use scenarios. The company is also offering safeguards that can require user confirmation before sensitive or irreversible actions and automatically stop a workflow when suspected prompt injection is detected. Its developer documentation describes configurable protections for areas such as financial transactions and changes to sensitive records. Google isn't the first to bring Computer Use to its platform. Anthropic has made computer control available through Claude, while OpenAI has continued improving computer-use performance in its recent models. Microsoft has also applied the concept to business workflows, including a Computer Use capability for the Researcher agent in Microsoft 365 Copilot.
  • Recent Achievements

    • Dedicated
      Scoobystu earned a badge
      Dedicated
    • First Post
      Tom Schmidt earned a badge
      First Post
    • One Month Later
      D0nn13 earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • Rookie
      +ChiefOfNeo went up a rank
      Rookie
    • One Year In
      Tom Schmidt earned a badge
      One Year In
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      463
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      177
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      124
    4. 4
      Michael Scrip
      79
    5. 5
      Xenon
      76
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!