Administration & Accounts

[John'Z]

I recently installed Vista Home Premium. Often when I try to install a new
application or hardware I am told I need administrator approval. I am the
only user and therefore would expect to be the administrator. (I suspect I
may not have answered some question correctly during the installation of
Vista).

My question is how or what do I have to do to overcome this requirement for
administror approval? Like I said, I am the owner, the only user and would
expect to not have anyone else's approval for anything I want to do. Right?

John

 

[jimmuh]

I can't emphasize strongly enough how important it is for a new Vista user to
understand the functionality of User Account Control. Just about the best /
most reasonable explanation of this feature of Vista can be found at this
location:

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/technetmag/issues/2007/06/UAC/default.aspx

Try to go into this with an open mind. Yes, there is a little trade-off in
convenience in order to obtain a gain in security.

I manage a large production domain for a manufacturing firm. I operate the
Vista computers I use as remote administration terminals as a standard user.
Every time I try to do something on the local system that requires
administrative approval I have to type in a password for an aministrative
account. (Or, better yet, I can use the switch user feature and log in
simultaneously as an administrator to do the administrative chore, depending
upon the context.)

Read it, study it, understand it. Trust me. If you use this feature
properly, it will make your system safer. Most people who try can get
comfortable with UAC. The people who fight it and / or turn it off (and there
are many) might as well just stick with Windows XP.

 

[Ronnie Vernon MVP]

John

Not exactly. Vista operates on the Least-privileged User Account security
principle (LUA).

Normal administrator accounts run as a Standard User until a program or
application requests elevation to administrator privileges. You then have a
choice of granting this elevation or denying the elevation.

If a program does not ask for your permission, this usually indicates that
the program is not compatible with Vista. You can manually force the program
to ask by right clicking the programs file and selecting the 'Run as
administrator' option.