Get UAC under control
Published on January 11, 2008 By Island Dog In Vista Software

When you first get to the desktop of a brand new Vista machine, one of the first things you probably do is start adjusting various settings and installing your software.  That is the moment you will first encounter the UAC (User Account Control), and probably some other "security" features.  UAC is a new feature introduced with Windows Vista that runs many applications and processes at a limited privilege level. 

When a user needs to make a change UAC will popup and allow the user to "elevate" privileges to allow the changes to be made.  The basic intention of this feature is to prevent unauthorized or mistaken changes to be made to the system and applications.  While the UAC aims to do good things, for many users it's just plain annoying.  You can completely disable the UAC, but you can also "fine tune" Vista's security features with Stardock's TweakVista.

Note:  You will need to be a member of the administrators group to make any changes

In the Security section of TweakVista you will find a wide variety of options to change Vista's default security settings.  In the Overview tab you will see where you can select the level of elevation prompts. 

  • High security - This will require login details to proceed with elevation
  • Medium security - This is the default setting which will prompt users for elevation.
  • Medium-low security - Disable all prompts for elevation by selecting this setting.
  • Low security - This will allow you to completely remove disable the UAC

Security overview


You are also able to set Login details as well.  You can specify if you need to require Ctrl+Alt+del/password to login, just the normal password prompt, or you can set it to automatically login as a specified user.

Changing the above settings will allow you to control the basic security settings, but if you want more control over them, select the Advanced tab for more options.  In the advanced options you can see a list of the administrators on your PC, and allow users to be prompted for confirmation or their credentials.

Security advanced


For more information and downloads, visit the TweakVista home page.

 


Comments
on Jan 11, 2008
Brilliant article.  I wish I had had it when I first got Vista.