Windows Vista has the built-in ability to automatically reduce the potential of security breeches in the system. It does that by automatically enabling a feature called User Account Control (or UAC for short). The UAC forces users that are part of the local administrators group to run like they were regular users with no administrative privileges.
Read more about UAC here: What’s User Account Control in Windows Vista?
Although UAC clearly improves the security on Windows Vista, under some scenarios you might want to disable it, for example when giving demos in front of an audience (demos that are not security related, for example). Some home users might be tempted to disable UAC because of the additional mouse clicking it brings into their system, however I urge them not to immediately do so, and try to get used to it instead.
Anyway, if required, you can disable UAC by using one of the following methods:
Method #1 – Using MSCONFIG
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Launch MSCONFIG by from the Run menu.
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Click on the Tools tab. Scroll down till you find «Disable UAP» (this should probably change to UAC in next Vista beta builds and in the RTM version). Click on that line.
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Press the Launch button.
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A CMD window will open. When the command is done, you can close the window.
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Close MSCONFIG. You need to reboot the computer for changes to apply.
Note that you can re-enable UAC by selecting the «Enable UAP» line and then clicking on the Launch button.
Method #2 – Using Regedit
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Open Registry Editor.
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In Registry Editor, navigate to the following registry key: