Make your Vista's admin account acts like in XP

By +Tantawi
in Essential Guides

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Community Regular

Clinteger

Posted
Posted
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.

Well, a little bit, but you're still not running as SYSTEM. That would be root. ;)

I think the reason people are doing this is because it would be like running as a normal user,

then a dialog [like kdesudo] pops up for small things, but if you want to make a symlink in a location

you don't own, then it would just tell you that it doesn't work, no sudo dialog at all.

Think about your analogies before you say them, or else you end up looking worse than if you did it yourself.

Yes, I've done this, but I don't use it all the time, I just login to it whenever I need to.

Clint

Experienced

solardog

Posted
Posted
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.

I never asked for this. I never complained about the way XP handled/didnt handle this. The default way Vista handles this is the most annoying thing Ive ever experienced on a pc... yes, even more annoying than a trojan or virus, which I can count on 1 hand the number of those Ive gotten in 20 years. I hate it, so its gone. This is my own system, in my own house, with my own self. :rofl:

Enthusiast

Laughing Man

Posted
Posted
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.

I think that's really dependent on the user. For example, I never complained about XP's security or stability. I think it's pretty solid on both if your a smart user. Hell, I myself go to those "questionable" websites and I've never been infected. Because I can take care of my computer, hardware and software side. On the other hand, I have friends who need my help in fixing their computer often. For them Vista's UAC would be a boon. A huge boon. For me, it's a pain in the ass and I'm glad I dumped it.

Grand Master

+Tantawi Subscriber²

Posted
  • Author
  • Subscriber²
Posted

Thanks all.

I've never complained about XP either, and a choice has to be made in Vista's way of controlling users and everyone is free to use whatever he/she likes and be responsible for any result.

Grand Master

BajiRav

Posted
Posted

I am using Home Premium and I decided to set ConsentPromptBehaviorAdmin=1 so that it actually asks for password instead of Ok/Cancel prompt. :)

I decided to go this way since I found myself clicking Allow sometimes without reading the prompt, when I was in middle of something.

Experienced

solardog

Posted
Posted
I am using Home Premium and I decided to set ConsentPromptBehaviorAdmin=1 so that it actually asks for password instead of Ok/Cancel prompt. :)

I decided to go this way since I found myself clicking Allow sometimes without reading the prompt, when I was in middle of something.

Wow. So you made it even more annoying. What are all these prompts you're getting that you werent expecting? Are you in the KGB? CIA? Interpol? MOSSAD? Scotland yard?

  • 3 weeks later...
Apprentice

geircito

Posted
Posted

So I have followed the instructions, working great.

But I have one issue:

Is it possible to change the name of the "\Users\Administrator" folder to per example "\Users\SYSOP" ????

Why would I do that?

Because I have a lot of shortcuts, setups and settings that use the folder "\Users\SYSOP".

I have managed to just rename that folder from another account, but then after restarting Vista seems to not "find" my account "Administrator" and create a temporary account.

-

Apprentice

geircito

Posted
Posted
So I have followed the instructions, working great.

But I have one issue:

Is it possible to change the name of the "\Users\Administrator" folder to per example "\Users\SYSOP" ????

Why would I do that?

Because I have a lot of shortcuts, setups and settings that use the folder "\Users\SYSOP".

I have managed to just rename that folder from another account, but then after restarting Vista seems to not "find" my account "Administrator" and create a temporary account.

-

Oh, I managed to solve this myself :-)

After the

3- Set "Accounts: Administrator account status" to Enabled

I also opened

Set ?Accounts: Rename administrator account?

and changed the name to SYSOP

When restarting Vista the new Administrator account's folder name under C:\Users was SYSOP.

This approach MUST be done when you enable the built-in Administrator account for Vista for the FIRST time.

-

  • 2 weeks later...
Proficient

Stunna

Posted
Posted
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.

controluserpasswords2vigv6.jpg

I have also enabled Administrator account from Computer Management

administratorenablevistxp5.th.jpg

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

how do you create batch files to give certain programs the admin power they need to execute?

and what type of "various tools" do you use?

thanks

Mentor

UncleSpellbinder

Posted
Posted

Just reformatted and did a fresh install. Gotta say thanks for a great tutorial! No longer annoying to use Vista Home Premium.

I've used XP as administrator since the beginning. Had a virus one time in more than 5 years. In XP (and now in Vista Home Premium) I use AVG Anti Virus, Spyware Blaster, AdAware SE and regularly do a full scan with Windows Defender.

Neowinian

Jam_Man

Posted
Posted
Damn, I dont understand why you people feel the urge to turn off security features..

Still everyone to thier own

Simply because anyone with experience is going to get quicky frustrated having to click yes to every change they make.

I understand the theory about protecting your pc but to be honest the amount of pop ups vista has is ridiculous and could even cause inexperienced users even more problems. I know my Mum would be ringing me every 10 minutes!

Grand Master

+Tantawi Subscriber²

Posted
  • Author
  • Subscriber²
Posted
alright i just did this and i want to delete this account named "administrator" but I don't know how... can anyone help?

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 Disabled.

Note that doing so will undo the new behavior, if that what you want to do.

  • 3 weeks later...
Proficient

bradavon

Posted
Posted (edited)

Hello.

Firstly thanks Tantawi for the useful guide, however:

From what I can see running Vista HP in this Administrator account is pretty much the same as the Admin account created during setup, with the exception it disables UAC.

* I still cannot rename notepad.exe to notepad2.exe as I could in XP under Admin, admittedly I cannot think of a reason I'd ever want to muck about with SYSTEM32 files but still.

* I still cannot gain access to folders such as "Documents and Settings" without taking Ownership of them which annoyingly doesn't propagate down to all subfolders even though I set it to, and even then on some folders that isn't working.

Is there a way of setting Vista "exactly" how Admin worked in XP? So you have cart blanch? I'm having to amend each folder I get access denied on and giving my own permissions back to me.

Cheers

Brad.

p.s - Keep up the good work :)

Edited by bradavon
Proficient

bradavon

Posted
Posted

Another reason to use the proper Admin account is you UAC is completely disabled but you can still enable it so as to keep Windows Security Center happy. If you just disable it via the "Users" GUI front end WSC starts complaining it's switched off.

I fail to see how UCA is any use for System Admins anyway (it's definitely useful for Standard Users) as an Admin will know what he's doing anyway and will just click Continue making the prompt pretty useless. AFAIK it has no effect on Hackers, Viruses or Spyware and is purely a User Access Control. For example: I know full well meddling with the options in the System window (in Control Panel) can do damage but I also know how to use it.

Like I said UAC from what I understand it is a User not Hacker prompt, unless I'm mistaken? . That said disabling UAC does disable Internet Explorer 7's Protected Mode, which doesn't interest me much as I don't use it anyway.

Community Regular

baskingridge

Posted
Posted
* I still cannot gain access to folders such as "Documents and Settings" without taking Ownership of them which annoyingly doesn't propagate down to all subfolders even though I set it to, and even then on some folders that isn't working.

There is no folder named Documents and Settings in Vista!

Proficient

bradavon

Posted
Posted

You're mistaken, like XP you need to enable "Hidden and System Files" from Options ;). Trust me it's definitely there. "ProgramData" seems to be both "All Users" and your current User mixed together. Then there is also "Users" I've not figured out how it and ProgramData differ yet.

I only bought my new Vista HP Laptop today and have spent the evening working out how to gain access to my folders :D

Grand Master

+Tantawi Subscriber²

Posted
  • Author
  • Subscriber²
Posted

Hi bradavon,

Congratulations on your new laptop, and welcome to Neowin :)

You may be looking to this tweak:

Take Ownership Context Menu Item

TakeOwn.reg adds a Take Ownership Context Menu Item to all files and folders. It opens an Elevated Command Prompt which recovers full access to the selected file / directory, sub directories and their content.

You can access the Context Menu Item by holding down Shift + right-click on a file or folder.

TakeOwn.png

If you want to access the Take Ownership Context Menu Item on an exe file, you must merge "RunAsAdmin_Exe-.reg"; this reg file removes the "Run as Administrator" Context Menu Item from all exe files (they both use the runas key). Merge "RunAsAdmin_Exe+.reg" if you want to restore the "Run as Administrator" Context Menu Item.

Install: Merge TakeOwn+.reg

Uninstall: Merge TakeOwn-.reg

> TakeOwn.zip ( 1,99 KB )

From: https://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=499870

Good luck :)

Proficient

bradavon

Posted
Posted (edited)

Hello Tantawi, thanks for the welcome.

Thanks for that reg fix. It looks like it adds a context menu which dumps you at a DOS command prompt. It's a start but I'd prefer a Full Admin account like XP.

Even if I didn't use it all the time it would be nice to know it's possible. For example I've not worked out how to be able to rename files in the WINDOWS\SYSTEM32 folder (unless I take ownership of that too) which you may need to do if you need to delete/rename a system file.

Has anyone worked how to do this? Surely it's possible. I believe the difference here is the Administrator account (the proper one) in Vista still doesn't own certain folders, they're owned by the SYSTEM account (which cannot logged in with) as opposed XP where you own each and every folder.

That thread is great though, it's chocker block with goodies. I'll have to get reading :D

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Can I suggest you add a disclaimer to your first post explaining disabling UAC takes Vista's IE7 Protected Mode with it.

This basically lowers IE7 to a Limited User (lower than the Semi-Admin you're logged in with). This is something IE7 users may not be aware of, even if you enable Protected Mode from Internet Options it stays disabled (just like UAC). There is a fix however.

If you want UAC disabled but Protected Mode on use DropMyRights which was written for XP but works just the same in Vista (I tested it last night), not only that but using it actually turns Protected Mode back on (i.e - instead of saying Protected Mode: Off it will say On). Therefore proving Protected Mode and DropMyRights are on and the same thing.

What is DropMyRights I hear you say, read on: http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms972827.aspx

It was written by a Microsoft bloke but isn't officially supported. I use the /c switch to make it even more secure. I've been using it for months and bar ActiveX installs (which need admin rights) not one website has fallen over. You can prove it works by trying to save a file into the SYSTEM32 folder, it won't let you.

The great thing is it's completely seamless, works on XP or Vista (probably 2000 too) and lets you get the good bits out of UAC without the bad. Just set the shortcut for each Internet enabled program to use it and make sure you choose Open "Minimised" and it's seamless.

Edited by bradavon
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It must be noted that the Security Advisor still contains (in my opinion) a pretty major bug in that if you enable SPC and then do the required rebooting, the Security Advisor still says that SPC is disabled. TerraMaster provided the following statement about it: It is disappointing that TOS 7 has been in beta since December, and this OOBE issue is still there. Shutdown option has moved Instead of a Taskbar option to manage the NAS, all of these options have been moved to a "Start panel", initially I didn't see it and my contact had to show me how to power off the F4-425 Pro. To logout, reboot or power off you can find those controls at the top right of the Panel. It is also possible to power off through the TNAS mobile app beta. Storage setup Above, you can see the steps I took to create the Storage Pools and Volumes. I made a second Storage Pool using TRAID on two 4TB MP44Q SSDs (which, in this instance, is similar to RAID 5), and finally, I added the 250GB 970 Evo Plus drive as Hyper Cache on Storage Pool 1 in Balanced mode. Registering If you decide not to lock down the F4-425 Pro in Security Isolation Mode (blocking all external connections), then you could set up a TNAS device ID through the Remote Access setting in the Control Panel (which must be unique). This works in combination with an online TerraMaster account. TOS 7 TNAS Online Creating a TerraMaster account and linking the device online activates the warranty when you provide proof of purchase and the serial number, but it also gives you access through the TNAS mobile app, which allows you to complete certain operationsб including powering off and restarting the NAS remotely. A TNAS mobile update is required to gain access through TOS 7, and this is provided on the TerraMaster website, as it is not yet on Google Play. The app is evolving all the time and has made leaps and bounds since I first started reviewing TerraMaster devices almost three years ago. It is not quite there yet if you are comparing the likes of Synology, which, sadly, a lot of users online do all the time. OpenClaw setup One of the main selling points of the new F4-425 Pro is the inclusion of OpenClaw, with TerraMaster claiming that it is "powered by the world's first AI-native TOS 7 OS, supporting local-first smart workflows and independent data control." However, I immediately ran into problems trying to enable OpenClaw. After waiting 20 minutes at the "Enabling" message of the OpenClaw app following installation, I decided to do some searching online and discovered that it couldn't complete the installation process due to SPC being enabled, which is something TOS 7 immediately recommends to be enabled on first boot. SPC for NAS (TOS 7) is basically the same principle as UAC in Windows; it blocks executables from being launched by non-Super Users. After reaching out to my contact about these issues, I received the following response: Anyway, this only became clear when I closed the OpenClaw app screen and clicked on the OpenClaw icon in the taskbar; that is when I saw the message about disabling SPC. I think, due to the fact that this is a requirement, this should be a prompt during the installation process, not when closing the App Market and then trying to launch OpenClaw. There's also no 'Getting started' guide for people like me who have never used OpenClaw. I tried to add an LLM and discovered the tutorial led nowhere. That's when I started looking around the official TerraMaster forums, and I found a guide that helpfully explains that you won't get anywhere with OpenClaw unless you have a paid plan, which is disappointing because I imagined there would be an option to use a local LLM as I do in SubtitleEdit with Whisper-XXL. In addition, with the marketing imagery on the official site, it says that the OpenClaw feature is "all processed 100% locally for absolute privacy." which led me to believe that I could install a local LLM, not one that required paid tokens. In any case, TerraMaster does not provide guidance for this new feature, which was also a selling point of the F4-425 Pro! My contact also provided clarification about the above points I raised with TerraMaster Since it is not in the scope of the review to add paid services, I'll leave that to the people who are more qualified with OpenClaw. F4-425 Pro Surveillance App TOS also comes with a Surveillance app, which is not installed by default; it can be found in the App Market recommended section. In addition, after installing, it doesn't drop a shortcut on the Desktop or top taskbar, but you can "Send to Desktop" from the App Market listing for the app for a quick way to open it. Adding my Reolink POE doorbell camera was painless. TerraMaster doesn't appear to have a repository of preconfigured cameras; instead, the camera must be added using ONVIF or RTSP. No mobile Surveillance app TerraMaster still doesn't have a dedicated Surveillance app, although from searching online, Surveillance can be used and managed through the TNAS mobile app. I tried this with the updated TNAS mobile app beta in combination with TOS 7 and got a message that Surveillance was "Only accessible through web browser," so I reckon this must be limited to the stable versions of TOS 6 and the mobile app. More quirks In addition, whenever I minimized the Live View window in the browser Surveillance app, the feed appeared to switch to the Low-bandwidth stream, and there was no way to get the High-quality stream back. To get the High-quality stream back, I had to close Live View and then reopen it. Benchmarking A pretty cool feature of the TOS 7 is that it allows you to install directly to the NVMe M.2 SSD. In order to do that, you would have to leave out any HDDs during initialization, and even then, the system partitions are always written to two HDDs when they are eventually added. With three NVMe slots, this also gives an interesting scenario where you could build a TRAID storage Pool for installing all your apps and Docker on, and keep the third for SSD cache on the HDD pool. Limitless options! SATA PCIe 3.0 X1 A CrystalDiskMark test on a mapped network drive from within a Windows 11 25H2 PC (image above) connected over a 5 GbE hub was well within acceptable ranges. Although the read result on SATA was a little less than with the F4-425 Plus, for some reason, while writes were generally better. SATA PCIe 3.0 X1 I also ran the NAS Performance tester, which tests the link speed performance. As you can see, it pretty much maxes out the 5GbE connection. Of course, you can also opt to bond the two 5 GbE connections for a bit more umph, but I didn't do that. TOS 7, which, as of testing, is still in Beta, comes with an App Center that has a bunch of handy programs you can install right off the bat, such as Emby, Plex, Docker, as well as in-house Backup and Surveillance solutions. As you can imagine, any media streaming services you would want to host off the F4-425 Pro will work great, thanks to the Intel Core N350 CPU and its 16 GB of DDR5 memory. Accessing from mobile is only possible if Security Isolation Mode is disabled, which can put your NAS at risk from external sources, so there was no way to access it from the TNAS Mobile app. It's also quiet. I had this sat next to my computer on my work desk for the past week, and I did wonder if the noise I was accustomed to with NAS devices would annoy me, but all I could hear was a soft whirring of the rear fan (which was a little annoying) when the disks were not actively copying or reading data. Conclusion So what have I learned? Unfortunately, this release raises a few important questions and concerns that I feel haven't been adequately addressed. What I didn't like Our variant shipped with TOS 7 beta, and it's advised not to use it in a production environment. I feel that's a bit limiting on an $800 device. The mobile app is also still in beta and does not support some of the first-party apps, like Surveillance, and it still has quite a few bugs. I am a bit confused about the OpenClaw marketing along with the F4-425 Pro. I feel like that if it's going to be a main selling point, then offer official guidance on how to get started with it. TerraMaster recommends enabling SPC, but then markets the NAS for use with OpenClaw, which requires disabling SPC to be able to use it, opening up genuine security concerns for the NAS; and that's before you get into the security concerns of OpenClaw itself. Of course, the above issues won't be a problem if you decide to install something else on it, or even go back to the stable TOS 6. I wish TerraMaster had just given TOS 7 as opt-in rather than shipping with it. TOS 7 has been available as a preview since December 2025 (so well before my last TerraMaster review), and according to a thread on Reddit where a user shared a screenshot from the TerraMaster Facebook page, it is scheduled to launch today, June 23, but there's nothing about that in the TerraMaster news blog. My contact confirmed over email that TOS 7 exits beta today. The rubber feet also deserve a mention as they continue to be a problem, with them coming unstuck the moment you shift the F4-425 Pro anywhere on your desk. What I liked What it comes down to, though, aside from what I already mentioned, you are still getting a quality, affordable device here, so recommending it will depend on the individual's use case. If you're just looking for a relatively small NAS device to manage virtual machines on, backup your files, and take care of your home theater streaming, then it is a great device that will certainly futureproof you for some time. It provides good performance, takes up little space, and is, on the whole, very quiet. Four bays afford proper redundancy using TRAID or RAID 5, and you can even expand on storage capacity by adding the 2-bay D5, or 4-bay D8 Hybrid DAS over a USB 3.2 (10Gbps) link. Considering the 2024 releases were more about power, with the likes of an Intel Core i5-1235U high-end laptop CPU under the hood, I asked my contact last time if we could expect more of the same in higher-end models and was told: It makes a lot of sense to use Intel's N350 chip inside a NAS; it is more than capable of doing what the F4-425 Pro is intended for, media streaming and backup. The only downside is still the clear lack of community and even staff support on the official forums. In the past, I have had topics go unanswered for days, or there would be generic-type "we've noted this and passed it onto our developer team" type responses. Along with the other things I mentioned, it all ends up costing it a couple of points. If you are comfortable with the command line, Docker, and setting up TrueNAS or Unraid, you'll be fine. You can do great things with this hardware. In TOS, the apps are a bit lacking, and things don't always work as expected.\ AI NAS?! What has become clear to me this year is that we are going to start seeing all kinds of "AI NAS" come to market, and while that might be good for us consumers, be diligent and research these claims. Although the F4-425 Pro technically comes with AI, it is really using a cloud service that is externally sourced off-device through the third party OpenClaw app. My colleague did review a newcomer to the NAS space earlier this year, and it includes a local AI assistant inside the Zettlab D4 NAS, and they do not even use AI in the product name, check out Chris' review here. Where to buy and a discount coupon However, it does not change the fact that this is truly a great entry-level home media-class NAS that you can buy right now. TerraMaster is having a 20% off launch discount, plus you can also still apply our unique 10% off coupon on checkout, which only works on the official website. So here is a breakdown of the pricing that is only valid on the official TerraMaster website. TerraMaster F4-425 Pro (N350) + 20% discount + 10% coupon = $575.99 TerraMaster F4-425 Pro (N305) + 20% discount + 10% coupon = $503.99 TerraMaster F4-425 Pro (N350) + 20% discount + 10% coupon = £525.59 TerraMaster F4-425 Pro (N305) + 20% discount + 10% coupon = £460.79 Use NEOWIN coupon code during checkout for 10% discount Over on Amazon US and UK, the F4-425 Pro also gets a 20% launch discount, but here, the above 10% coupon cannot be applied. TerraMaster F4-425 Pro (N350) for $639.99 at Amazon US (was $799.99) TerraMaster F4-425 Pro (N305) for $559.99 at Amazon US (was $699.99) TerraMaster F4-425 Pro (N350) for £583.99 at Amazon UK (was £729.99) TerraMaster F4-425 Pro (N305) for £511.99 at Amazon UK (was £639.99) As an Amazon Associate, when you purchase through links on our site, we earn from qualifying purchases.
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