User Account Control (UAC), or unknowingly mistaken as User Access Control is new security feature in Windows Vista. The main display of UAC is the occasional pop up. The new User Account Control (UAC) in Windows 7 now allows you to completely control what kind of pop-ups and notifications you see as compared to Windows Vista where. Windows Vista (codenamed Longhorn) is an operating system by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, tablet PCs and. How to Disable Windows Media Center. Computer technology can be confusing sometimes, especially when you want to hide or deactivate something that came with your.
How to access the true Administrator account in Windows Vista. In early June, Computerworld published the story, . For instance, the Administrator account does not have User Account Control enabled. There may also be differences in the ability to remove restrictive file operations and object permissions, but Microsoft is still working out those details and does not expect to reveal them until RC1 and beyond. Finally, by default, the Administrator account is present, but it's hidden and disabled on all clean installs of the operating system. But the MMC- based Computer Management section of the Administrative Tools Control Panel does give you access to the Administrator account. By default, the account is disabled, but you can enable it there. Your obvious conclusion might be that all you need to do is enable the Administrator account, restart Windows and then log into the Administrator account. But that doesn't work. There's an added step that Microsoft hasn't documented and that isn't all that intuitive: Not only do you have to enable the Administrator account, you also have to disable all other accounts with computer- administrator privileges. And since Vista's clean- install setup program forces you to create a new user account with computer administrator privileges, everyone has to cross this hurdle in finding the built- in Administrator. The result of the bug is that you will be completely locked out of your Windows Vista installation. So, please follow the directions to the letter. I will show you how to safely add a password to your Administrator account. Open the Administrative Tools Control Panel. Double- click the Computer Management item to open it. Authorize UAC by clicking the Continue button. Double- click . Click the Users folder. On the right side of Computer Management, you should see icons for all of the user accounts created on your computer. The ones that have small red circles with an . Remove the check mark from the . You'll need to restart your computer and follow one of the following two methods to access Administrator. Accessing Administrator: Method 1. For this method, you press F8 as Windows is starting up when the character mode part of the boot- up says something to the effect of . Once the boot menu is showing, paused for your operating system selection, use the arrow or tab keys to select . Don't press Enter; instead, press the F8 key, and you'll progress to the Safe Mode boot screen. Choose the first option, . Click the Administrator icon. But for quick access to the Administrator account, this is about as good as it gets in Vista Beta 2. Accessing Administrator: Method 2. The second method allows you to log into the Administrator account just as you would any normal account. So you get the full- fledged Administrator privileges in a normal boot mode, not Safe Mode. There's a trick you need to know to make it work. And also something you need to watch out for. Look for account icons that lack the red disable mark. You should find at least one with computer administrator privileges. Follow the same steps to open Properties, but this time, click to add a check mark in the box labeled . Close Computer Management and restart Windows. When it comes back up, it will just load the Administrator account, since you haven't set a password. Your Administrator account should not be left enabled without a password. So, have a look around, but don't move in. And when you're done, I strongly urge you to re- enable your user account(s) and promptly disable the Administrator account. Open the User Account Control Panel. Click the link there that reads . On the subsequent screen, you'll find an easy way to turn off UAC. Living Dangerously. There is another possible wrinkle on Method 2. It is possible to set a password for your Administrator account. The bug with setting the Administrator account is in the Computer Management part of the Administrative Tools Control Panel. But there's another way to manage user accounts: the User Accounts Control Panel. But once you're booted into Administrator, it lets you set a password for it without any negative effects. So this is a work- around if you'd like to leave your Administrator account enabled. Enable it in Computer Management, and then set a password for it in the User Accounts Control Panel. It's important to protect it with a password that's not easy to guess or arrive at by trial and error. Conclusions. Despite what it may seem to some people, Microsoft's decision to disable and lightly hide the Administrator account in Windows was a very good one. Millions of people have for many years been living in this account - - many without even having set a password for it. Doing so makes it easy for malware and hackers to waltz into an account that has unlimited access to the operating system. By changing the name for the account on your computer that has administrative privileges, and by setting a password for it, Windows security is raised considerably. Microsoft has designed UAC in a way that keeps you from having to reboot between changes, but there are still too many nuisance UAC prompts. There's still development time to go on Vista's User Account Controls. Online editorial director Scot Finnie has been an editor for a variety of IT publications for more than 2. This article was adapted from the July 2. Scot's Newsletter and is used by permission.
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