From: Sue Morton on
Hi Rick,

If you ever do want to lower or disable UAC for a period of time (if doing
more than a one-off elevated command window is convenient for), go here:

Start -> Control Panel -> System and Security
Choose the sub-item under "Action Center" is "Change User Account Control
Settings"

You may need to be logged in with Administrator privs to see this sub-item
(not positive about that).
--
Sue Morton


"Rick Paul" <rickpaul(a)earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:esKdnSI8nIlALqjWnZ2dnUVZ_tydnZ2d(a)earthlink.com...
> It was a bit of a hassle to install. They want you to disable UAC on
> Windows 7 or Vista, and it doesn't install by just going for it without
> doing that. I wasn't really sure how to disable UAC,


From: Sue Morton on
My userid always has admin privs so I turn UAC off the very first time I
login and I've never given it another thought after that. So you have a
very good question that I can't answer right at the moment:-)

If as I mentioned below you do need to have admin privs to even turn it off,
then the question however good is irrelevant -- as an admin you'd be able to
install what you want anyway. And if you don't have admin privs, then I
don't know what good turning UAC off would do...

Short answer: Dunno!
--
Sue Morton

"Rick Paul"
> Hmm, I went there before searching around, but it just says it will turn
> off notifications, so I assumed that's all it was doing -- I.e. I'd
> wouldn't have to keep seeing dialog boxes to respond to, but, assuming I
> responded that it was okay to go forward, it wouldn't really affect
> operation. And the installation actually failed, saying it couldn't run a
> file or some such thing, when I was just running it without running a
> command line as administrator. But maybe the labeling on the page you
> referred to is misleading, and it really does more than just stop prompts
> from occurring?


From: Sue Morton on

"Rick Paul"
> My user account has admin privileges, but I still get the prompts from UAC
> (or whatever) when it needs to do certain things.

Yes if you don't take the slider down all the way you will see the prompts,
that's what I was telling you about.


> Also, it doesn't actually run programs as administrator by default, though
> it's easy enough to right click on them and specify they be run that way.

If your userid does have admin privs then you are running as a member of the
Administrator's group -- and yes it is installing as an administrator and
programs will run with admin privs. If you don't move the slider down on
UAC you'll still see the messages though.

You can prove whether your userid does run with admin privs very easily --
open the 'run' box off the start menu. If you see the message 'this task
will be created with administrative privileges' then your userid is running
as Administrator.

> I remember reading something about the differences between running as a
> user with administrator privileges and running as administrator, but I'll
> be damned if I remember what the differences were.

What you probably recall is a reference to revealing the 'hidden
Administrator account' that cannot be seen on the login screen, and logging
in with that?

If you saw different behavior with your installs, then your userid does not
have full admin privs, or your answer to UAC prompt may have altered the
process.

When you next need to do something like this, verify you do have admin
privs, turn off UAC, and do your install. Then turn up UAC as you prefer.
--
Sue Morton


From: Sue Morton on

"Rick Paul" <rickpaul(a)earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:7audnX6WnNeLnarWnZ2dnUVZ_qWdnZ2d(a)earthlink.com...
>I just looked up what I was talking about, and, just to clarify, I am
>normally running as a "protected administrator", as opposed to an "elevated
>administrator

> I don't see the message you are talking about when opening a Run box.

That would be why, you're not running as a 'true administrator' (for lack of
better term).


> Administrator to run the command with elevated privileges, and this is
> what I was talking about needing to do sometimes to let certain plug-ins
> to authorize properly (which I assume probably means "write to the
> registry").

Yes I know -- it's a one-off method if you will. What I was suggesting, is
instead you can login as a 'true administrator', turn off UAC prompts,
install and do everything you need to do, then go back to whatever way to
you prefer as your login. It might be more convenient and less error prone
than using the one-off method depending on the circumstance.

I hope that's clearer now...
--
Sue Morton


From: Sue Morton on
One of the reasons I install questionable software in a VM first, even if it
scans clean of beasties and unwanted 'features'. I can toss the VM if I
don't like what happened to it. Of course I always image my main system
before any kind of install, so if I didn't catch something in a VM or didn't
think I needed to try in a VM first, I can always roll back my OS partition.
--
Sue Morton

> trust the software vendor sufficiently or not (and can abort if not).