Tag: uac

Windows 7 Beta Elevation PowerToys

January 24, 2009 by Jason

The Elevation PowerToys that have been initially made available for Windows Vista can now also be integrated with the first Beta of Windows 7. Fighting a bug in Win 7 Beta, Michael Murgolo, a senior consultant with Microsoft Services – U.S. East Region, and the maker of the Elevation PowerToys for Windows Vista, has tweaked the tools, permitting users to integrate them with the current development milestone of the next iteration of Windows.

“The Elevate command in the Elevation PowerToys does not work correctly in the Windows 7 Beta. The application is launched elevated, but the arguments are not passed to the application. It turns out that this is caused by a known bug in the Windows 7 Beta. The ShellExecute method of the Shell Scripting Objects does not pass the argument parameter when it is stored in a variable,†Murgolo stated.

The issue was reported in December 2008, and this week Murgolo managed to come up with a solution designed to bypass the Windows 7 bug and allow the Elevation PowerToys to play nice with the operating system. Following the changes delivered by the developer, users should no longer have any issues when it comes down to the integration of the Elevation PowerToys into Windows 7 Beta. Read More»

Windows 7 User Account Control

January 18, 2009 by Jason

In the next version of the Windows client, end users will be able to customize the level of nagging that the operating system generates via the User Account Control, revealed Steven Sinofsky, Senior Vice President, Windows and Windows Live Engineering Group, on behalf of the team building the feature. Sinofsky emphasized that, as early as Windows 7 pre-Beta Milestone 3 Build 6801, users of the operating system would be able to see a reduction in the volume of prompts associated with UAC. At the same time, Microsoft started implementing the new dialog designs into the platform, along with the new UAC Control Panel.

The User Account Control was introduced in Windows Vista with the purpose of making all Windows users run under standard privileges, even those with administrator accounts. In this respect, the mitigation is able to provide an extra layer of defense against malicious code that would attempt to install itself on a machine, as UAC requires the user to grant it the rights. Sinofsky indicated that, in Windows 7, users would have more control over UAC compared to what was made available in Windows Vista. Read More»

Ten Tips for Windows 7

January 10, 2009 by Jason

Microsoft is releasing Windows 7 to 2.5 million beta testers today. Here are ten tips for those who are preparing to take the plunge:

1. Back-up your system

Whilst we’ve been mightily impressed with the stability of Windows 7 ever since the pre-beta launch, this remains a work in progress. If you’re even considering installing Windows 7 on a mission-critical system, make sure you take a full back-up first, so that you’ve got a fall back if it all goes horribly wonky.

2. Take note of your settings and software keys

If you’re making a fresh install of Windows 7, rather than upgrading a previous OS, make a note of all your crucial settings – such as your wireless network key and Outlook configuration – so that you can get online immediately. Also make sure you can lay your hands on keys for any essential software that you’ll need to re-install in Windows 7. Read More»

Run Blocked Startup Programs In Vista

July 29, 2008 by Jason

Windows Vista is good for security, but sometimes it can go too far making it hard to run programs that you know are safe and not giving a way to run them in the future. The way it treats some startup programs is a classic example, frequently displaying an annoying ‘Windows has blocked some startup programs’ error message.

I’ve finally found a way to unblock startup programs in Vista and to remove the ‘Windows has blocked some startup programs’ message. To do this follow the steps below:
Read More»

How to turn off User Account Control (UAC) in Windows Vista

April 07, 2008 by Jason

User Account Control can be annoying, but it’s an extra layer of protection that protects your computer from viruses, hackers, and poorly written software.

UAC lets you know when someone or something is trying to change a setting or install/uninstall software on your computer. It also removes administrative rights from software making it harmless to critical system files and services.

Before UAC, settings could be changed and software could be installed/uninstalled without you knowing. Software running under an account with admin rights also had full admin rights which gave it full access to critical system files and services. Read More»

Enable / Disable UAC for a specific user in windows vista

January 20, 2008 by Jason

As per experience and user reviews which I have read till now ,UAC (User Account Control) has been the most annoying feature which got bundled automatically with windows vista.

But some times there are cases when you may want UAC to enabled for one user but at the same time disabled for another user.

So , you can explicitly enable UAC for the specific user by following the procedure below.

1. Open Start>>Control Panel Read More»

Change Sharing Options or the Public Folder

January 18, 2008 by Jason

Vista offers easy sharing with the Public folder, which is shared with other users on your network and also with additional user accounts on your computer. By default the Public folder will contain sub folders for the following: Public Desktop, Public Documents, Public Downloads, Public Music, Public Pictures, Public Videos,and Recorded TV. To share any files out on the network with other users you can simply drag and drop (or save) the files in the Public folder or any Public sub-folder. The capability to automatically share your Public folder, however, changes when you are connected to a public network, like Wi-Fi hotspots for example. When you initially set-up Vista Networking options you’re required to specify the type of network you are connecting to a Home, Work or Public network. If you connect to a Public network then Vista will default disable sharing, including Public folder sharing. Read More»

10 Simple Ways To Speed Up Windows Vista

November 01, 2007 by Jason

Windows Vista is a rather heavy operating system with many neat features, but unfortunately they all come at a price. Right out of the box it requires a pretty hefty system to run (arguably). Before you run out and buy a new computer just so you can run your base operating system, check out these 10 Simple Ways To Speedup Windows Vista tips to lighten the load. This is just the first in the series, so many of them may be very apparent to those experienced in tweaking. If you’re still using Windows XP, then check out 10 Simple Ways To Speedup Windows XP.

This article details the following 10 tips: Read More»

User Account Control for vista – TweakUAC

July 19, 2007 by Jason

We all know how annoying UAC can get, especially when you’ve just installed Windows Vista and you have a dozen of programs and security apps ready to install. A small program called TweakUAC gets rid of this annoyance by putting UAC into “quiet mode.†What it actually does is without turning off UAC,

it doesn’t display any prompts for administrators when attempting to do an administrative task. However, Read More»

How To Disable Windows Vista’s User Account Control

May 06, 2007 by Jason

I’ve finally started making a few changes to my Windows Vista setup. One of the most annoying recurring problems I’ve had is that User Account Control, which is designed to protect your computer from unauthorized changes isn’t very intelligent and doesn’t learn from past behaviour. So, if you will constantly have to approve certain programs.

I’ve decided to turn User Account Control off. Yes, there’s a risk that I might be leaving my machine vulnerable but I’m pretty careful so I’m confident I’ll be ok. Disabling UAC is pretty easy: Read More»