Disable Windows Vista User Account Control [How To]

By Rich on April 1, 2008 (54 Comments)

If you feel confident with taking control of security, you probably don’t need the User Account Control (UAC) that comes with Microsoft Windows Vista. This guide will show you how to turn off the UAC so that it doesn’t bother you any more.

1. Open the Start Menu and select Control Panel.

01 Disable Windows Vista User Account Control [How To]

2. Now select User Accounts

02 Disable Windows Vista User Account Control [How To]

3. Select Turn User Account Control on or off

03 Disable Windows Vista User Account Control [How To]

4. Uncheck the box next to “Use User Account Control (UAC)…” and press OK

04 Disable Windows Vista User Account Control [How To]

You will now be asked to restart your computer to activate your changes. After your computer is restarted you won’t be bothered anymore by the UAC.

If you want to enable the User Account Control again, you simply repeat the above process and at step 4 recheck the box next to “Use User Account Control (UAC)…” and press OK.

About Rich

Rich is the owner and creator of Windows Guides; he spends his time breaking things on his PC so he can write how-to guides to fix the problems he creates.

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How to disable Windows Vista U
[…] Sir David wrote an interesting post today onHere#8217s a quick excerptIf you feel confident with taking control of security, you probably don’t need the User Account Control (UAC) that comes with Microsoft Windows Vista. This guide will show you how to turn off the UAC so that it doesn’t bother you any #8230 […]
Angad
Yeah, I Really used to get annoyed with all those Pop-Ups Popping up!
Angad
Yeah, I Really used to get annoyed with all those Pop-Ups Popping up!
Angad
Yeah, I Really used to get annoyed with all those Pop-Ups Popping up!
Rich
Yeah, it gets old after a while!
http://mintywhite.com Rich
Yeah, it gets old after a while!
http://mintywhite.com Rich
Yeah, it gets old after a while!
HL
Very useful!
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shure?
very easy to follow. I will recommmend this site to my friends
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Laura Vincent
Thank you f or this fun site
Laura Vincent
Thank you f or this fun site
Laura Vincent
Thank you f or this fun site
antony
mine wont let me change the name of the adminstrator or turn off the uac any ideas i am logged in as the adminstrater but its just named itself sony/s
http://none antony
mine wont let me change the name of the adminstrator or turn off the uac any ideas i am logged in as the adminstrater but its just named itself sony/s
Carey Harrison
UAC is so annoying and I never got a Virus on XP, so what will change? Tahnk you!
Carey Harrison
UAC is so annoying and I never got a Virus on XP, so what will change? Tahnk you!
Carey Harrison
UAC is so annoying and I never got a Virus on XP, so what will change? Tahnk you!
Jim
I find the UAC aggrevating. I recently bought a Vista computer, logged in as admin, and got a lovely popup telling me I didn’t have permission. I was moving a text file from c:downloads to usernamedocuments. The UAC is not a security thing, its to cause more burst blood vessles. :-( I don’t use Windows firewall either. So I am not worried about it not updating by turning off UAC. User security is a good idea, but the UAC is very poorly implemented. I have worked on non-Windows operating systems, such as Unicos, and the security on those systems was much better.
Jim
I find the UAC aggrevating. I recently bought a Vista computer, logged in as admin, and got a lovely popup telling me I didn’t have permission. I was moving a text file from c:downloads to usernamedocuments. The UAC is not a security thing, its to cause more burst blood vessles. :-( I don’t use Windows firewall either. So I am not worried about it not updating by turning off UAC. User security is a good idea, but the UAC is very poorly implemented. I have worked on non-Windows operating systems, such as Unicos, and the security on those systems was much better.
- http://mintywhite.com/tech/ Rich
  I agree Jim. Windows 7’s UAC looks to be much better already.
Jim
I find the UAC aggrevating. I recently bought a Vista computer, logged in as admin, and got a lovely popup telling me I didn’t have permission. I was moving a text file from c:\downloads to username\documents. The UAC is not a security thing, its to cause more burst blood vessles. :-( I don’t use Windows firewall either. So I am not worried about it not updating by turning off UAC. User security is a good idea, but the UAC is very poorly implemented. I have worked on non-Windows operating systems, such as Unicos, and the security on those systems was much better.
- http://mintywhite.com/tech/ Rich
  I agree Jim. Windows 7’s UAC looks to be much better already.
Rich
I agree Jim. Windows 7’s UAC looks to be much better already.
Jim
New weirdness from Vista. New for me anyway. I have a WinXP hard drive, from a previous desktop computer, in an external usb case. I was going to copy more files over to my Vista computer. But the Vista machine claimed the WinXP drive needing formatting, nothing was there. 80 gigabytes, nothing there.
I shut down the Vista machine, and plugged the external usb drive case into my WinXP laptop. It saw the files just fine, and didn’t claim it needed formatting.
Jim
New weirdness from Vista. New for me anyway. I have a WinXP hard drive, from a previous desktop computer, in an external usb case. I was going to copy more files over to my Vista computer. But the Vista machine claimed the WinXP drive needing formatting, nothing was there. 80 gigabytes, nothing there.
I shut down the Vista machine, and plugged the external usb drive case into my WinXP laptop. It saw the files just fine, and didn’t claim it needed formatting.
- http://mintywhite.com/tech/ Rich
  @Jim – If you set up a user, in Vista, with the same credentials as your XP installation, you may find you can access the files.
Jim
New weirdness from Vista. New for me anyway. I have a WinXP hard drive, from a previous desktop computer, in an external usb case. I was going to copy more files over to my Vista computer. But the Vista machine claimed the WinXP drive needing formatting, nothing was there. 80 gigabytes, nothing there.
I shut down the Vista machine, and plugged the external usb drive case into my WinXP laptop. It saw the files just fine, and didn’t claim it needed formatting.
- http://mintywhite.com/tech/ Rich
  @Jim – If you set up a user, in Vista, with the same credentials as your XP installation, you may find you can access the files.
Rich
@Jim – If you set up a user, in Vista, with the same credentials as your XP installation, you may find you can access the files.
Dan
For some reason when I check this box and click ok, it does not enable user account control. I go back and the box is unchecked still.
Dan
For some reason when I check this box and click ok, it does not enable user account control. I go back and the box is unchecked still.
Dan
For some reason when I check this box and click ok, it does not enable user account control. I go back and the box is unchecked still.
Mel
That is great to know! I didn’t realize this could be disabled.
Mel
That is great to know! I didn’t realize this could be disabled.
Mel
I’ve had similar issues with my usb hdd in XP…never really could figure out the cause but I had really messed this hdd earlier playing with the boot sector..
Mel
I’ve had similar issues with my usb hdd in XP…never really could figure out the cause but I had really messed this hdd earlier playing with the boot sector..
Mel
Yeah, I guess there has to be a balance between being protective and making it too hard to do regular tasks. Hopefully Win7 will be much better at finding that balance.
Mel
Yeah, I guess there has to be a balance between being protective and making it too hard to do regular tasks. Hopefully Win7 will be much better at finding that balance.
Mel
Oh, just because you haven’t caught a virus yet doesn’t mean you won’t. Coders are finding more and more creative ways to get viruses on computers..
Mel
Oh, just because you haven’t caught a virus yet doesn’t mean you won’t. Coders are finding more and more creative ways to get viruses on computers..
Mel
Lol – reminds me of that joke that the biggest virus on the computer is windows.. :)
Mel
Lol – reminds me of that joke that the biggest virus on the computer is windows.. :)
Mel
That is great to know! I didn’t realize this could be disabled.
Mel
I’ve had similar issues with my usb hdd in XP…never really could figure out the cause but I had really messed this hdd earlier playing with the boot sector..
Mel
Yeah, I guess there has to be a balance between being protective and making it too hard to do regular tasks. Hopefully Win7 will be much better at finding that balance.
Mel
Oh, just because you haven’t caught a virus yet doesn’t mean you won’t. Coders are finding more and more creative ways to get viruses on computers..
Mel
Lol – reminds me of that joke that the biggest virus on the computer is windows.. :)

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