Is it possible to disable the Security Center Alerts on Vista (no
icon, no notifications) via command line or by script?

Turning off UAC by modifying a certain registry entry turned out to be
easy (using the reg.exe command line utility), however I can't find a
way to do the same for the Security Center Alerts. I am willing to
write some scripting code if that is what it takes.



Does anyone know?

"Dilip" <rdilipk@xxxxxx> wrote in message news:83cb4b3b-05cc-45ee-970e-2606723c4029@xxxxxx

>
> Is it possible to disable the Security Center Alerts on Vista (no
> icon, no notifications) via command line or by script?
>
> Turning off UAC by modifying a certain registry entry turned out to be
> easy (using the reg.exe command line utility), however I can't find a
> way to do the same for the Security Center Alerts. I am willing to
> write some scripting code if that is what it takes.
>
> Does anyone know?

You'll find the info here:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Security Center\Svc
and then under your unique-numbered key.
The three states are 0, 1 or 2.

On Jun 21, 4:46 pm, "Dave-UK" <1...@xxxxxx> wrote:

> "Dilip" <rdil...@xxxxxx> wrote in messagenews:83cb4b3b-05cc-45ee-970e-2606723c4029@xxxxxx
>

> > Is it possible to disable the Security Center Alerts on Vista (no
> > icon, no notifications) via command line or by script?

>

> > Turning off UAC by modifying a certain registry entry turned out to be
> > easy (using the reg.exe command line utility), however I can't find a
> > way to do the same for the Security Center Alerts. I am willing to
> > write some scripting code if that is what it takes.

>

> > Does anyone know?

>
> You'll find the info here:
> HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Security Center\Svc
> and then under your unique-numbered key.
> The three states are 0, 1 or 2.

Thanks Dave. I knew this key but there was a reason why I asked this
question. Initially that hive underneath Svc is empty. The unique-
numbered key is generated the first time I try to make any
modification to the security center settings. What this means is I
cannot write any general purpose utility to turn this on/off ahead of
time, right? because I don't know what algorithm Vista is using to
generate that key.

"Dilip" <rdilipk@xxxxxx> wrote in message news:594ab5dc-5ee1-4f09-bb17-2d7c93e4af4d@xxxxxx

> On Jun 21, 4:46 pm, "Dave-UK" <1...@xxxxxx> wrote:

>> "Dilip" <rdil...@xxxxxx> wrote in messagenews:83cb4b3b-05cc-45ee-970e-2606723c4029@xxxxxx
>>

>> > Is it possible to disable the Security Center Alerts on Vista (no
>> > icon, no notifications) via command line or by script?

>>

>> > Turning off UAC by modifying a certain registry entry turned out to be
>> > easy (using the reg.exe command line utility), however I can't find a
>> > way to do the same for the Security Center Alerts. I am willing to
>> > write some scripting code if that is what it takes.

>>

>> > Does anyone know?

>>
>> You'll find the info here:
>> HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Security Center\Svc
>> and then under your unique-numbered key.
>> The three states are 0, 1 or 2.

>
> Thanks Dave. I knew this key but there was a reason why I asked this
> question. Initially that hive underneath Svc is empty. The unique-
> numbered key is generated the first time I try to make any
> modification to the security center settings. What this means is I
> cannot write any general purpose utility to turn this on/off ahead of
> time, right? because I don't know what algorithm Vista is using to
> generate that key.

The 36 digit number is the user number, already generated in HKEY_Users.
You need to identify the user and read the number from there.
I have only one number as I am the only user of my machine,
I don't know about multiple accounts.

On Jun 22, 3:48 am, "Dave-UK" <1...@xxxxxx> wrote:

> "Dilip" <rdil...@xxxxxx> wrote in messagenews:594ab5dc-5ee1-4f09-bb17-2d7c93e4af4d@xxxxxx

> > On Jun 21, 4:46 pm, "Dave-UK" <1...@xxxxxx> wrote:

> >> "Dilip" <rdil...@xxxxxx> wrote in messagenews:83cb4b3b-05cc-45ee-970e-2606723c4029@xxxxxx

>

> >> > Is it possible to disable the Security Center Alerts on Vista (no
> >> > icon, no notifications) via command line or by script?

>

> >> > Turning off UAC by modifying a certain registry entry turned out to be
> >> > easy (using the reg.exe command line utility), however I can't find a
> >> > way to do the same for the Security Center Alerts. I am willing to
> >> > write some scripting code if that is what it takes.

>

> >> > Does anyone know?

>

> >> You'll find the info here:
> >> HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Security Center\Svc
> >> and then under your unique-numbered key.
> >> The three states are 0, 1 or 2.

>

> > Thanks Dave. I knew this key but there was a reason why I asked this
> > question. Initially that hive underneath Svc is empty. The unique-
> > numbered key is generated the first time I try to make any
> > modification to the security center settings. What this means is I
> > cannot write any general purpose utility to turn this on/off ahead of
> > time, right? because I don't know what algorithm Vista is using to
> > generate that key.

>
> The 36 digit number is the user number, already generated in HKEY_Users.
> You need to identify the user and read the number from there.
> I have only one number as I am the only user of my machine,
> I don't know about multiple accounts.

Beautiful!!! I can check this only on Monday since I don't have a
Vista machine handy but what hive under HKEY_Users is this user number
found? I know I can figure this out tomorrow but I am trying to get
myself prepared with as much as I can possibly learn from you (;-)) so
that all I will have to do tomorrow is to crank out an app that can
turn off the alerts. That way I can probably meet the Tuesday release
deadline.

BTW, I noticed that under the Svc\user-generated-number, there are
actually 2 string values: EnableNotifications and
EnableNotificationsRef. EnableNotifications is what is used to
trigger the 3 different options (icon - no/notifications - no, icon -
yes/notifications - no, icon - yes/notifications - yes). The latter
key is used to bump the count by 1 everytime a change is made to the
security center options.

Have I got that right?