Vista - UAC disabled same as "Run as administrator"?

I'm just wondering why people need to use the hidden Administrator account (there is a tutorial somewhere on this website).

My question is -- Does disabling UAC give you full access and control rights, or are you still limited?

I mean, i see tutorials telling people to right click programs and use "Run as administrator", but i've never had a need to ever do that. Is it because i've got UAC disabled, or is it something else?

Hi ramzy,

The Built in hidden administrator in Vista is at a higher level than a normal administrator but there are few practical differences or reasons to use this account.

Turning off UAC will give the Admin User the rights they had In previous windows editions (XP) with all the potential for problems that causes.

On a correctly set-up system running with UAC enabled is the safest way to run Vista and the UAC Pop-up acts as a useful reminder that the action about to be performed may be unsafe or have a potential to cause system damage.

The problem with UAC as it is now, is that it pops up SO often, that it is in danger of becoming meaningless to the user. The user begins to simply click through the prompts as a matter of habit. Hopefully, that will be rectified in the next OS.

Hi sourpus,

unfortunately one of the problems is bad programming of applications by the third party developers, the need to code programs for a standard user was in the spec for XP so those developers who still code wrongly and force vista into a UAC prompt that is not needed, have no real excuse.

by the time Microsoft release the next OS, developers may have caught on to what they should have been doing for a long time, so it will seem that UAC has changed when it hasn't.

there are too many prompts I agree, and yes your familiarity point is fully valid. hopefully as Vista becomes more popular () this will lessen the problem

In message <d809450ef6d6a8aef1084e8f028acddb@xxxxxx-gateway.com> barman58
<guest@xxxxxx-email.com> was claimed to have wrote:
Hey now, that's not fair to developers claiming that this whole spec
started in XP, that implies they had 5-7 years to adjust applications to
run without administrative privileges.

This actually goes right back to NT3.51 well into the 90s, developers
have had a *lot* longer then XP to figure out how to run as a limited
user.

LOL I Know I was trying to be nice even though had just spent time helping someone who's DTP insisted on being an administrator one day one day

Hmm, food for thought. I did not know that

Here's an instance where "run as adminisrator" makes sense:

The owner and sole user of a single computer has two accounts on Vista:
administrator account and standard user account. While running the standard
user account, the owner/single user may need to run an application such as
register edit. In the standard account the user can right click the reg edit
application and run the application with administrator privileges right from
the start.

Why have two accounts if you're the sole user of the computer? Having an
adminstrator account but working in a standard user account gives the
computer another layer of protection from bad software or malfeance activity
(such as a member of the family) from changing important OS files and
parameters.

I have been using the administrator account and standard user account scheme
for a year now. Critics complain that such a scheme is intrusive to the user
(too many mouse clicks?). But I have not had to reinstall Vista OS, the
registry or important applications since then.

Occassionally I will disable UAC as a workaround to delete confused folders
or files but then immediatley enable UAC afterwards.

"Run as administrator" has other applications but for many owners who are
single users "run as adminstrator isn't used very much if the owner/single
user is operating from an administrator account with full privileges.
--
oscar

....Right click is your very good friend...


"Ramzy" wrote:

Thank you for your informed comments oscar,

As a system administrator the norm is to have two accounts, one as a standard user, and one as administrator, you run as a standard user for your day to day tasks and for the odd admin task use "run as administrator". If you have a lot of admin work to to you can log into the administrator account, do the work required, and log out.

What Vista does is add a a degree of automation to this system of run as administrator, and as before you can simply switch off UAC if you need to do a lot of Admin work such as major upgrades.

what I have found is when you explain the reasoning behind the UAC to new users they can understand the need for this system and use it without problems.

The unfortunate thing is that a lot of experienced XP users have got used to running in an admin mode when it is not required and potentially dangerous. They quite rightly say that they know what they are doing and ran XP like this for years without a virus or other problem. The point is that UAC is not aimed at them but at the less experienced user who may not be as safe.

I ran XP using the Two user system and would run vista in this way if it was needed. UAC makes this unnecessary and I find that a gain and makes my life easier.

I understand the frustration of users not disciplined in working this way and the situation would be much improved if you didn't have to invoke the UAC for programs where there is obviously no need. But only the software developers can cure that one

Sorry, a novice here trying to undrestand the above explanation. Do you mean
whenever I switch on my PC, i am login as a std user eventhough I am the only
user for this PC? and when I need to do some administrator task, I would have
to disable the UAC?