Create UAC White List
Contrary to popular belief and FUD spread by various tech evangelists, Vista’s UAC is a boon as opposed to their constant bashing of this feature. I am not saying this ‘coz of my love for Microsoft, but genuinely having seen how this feature saves me and a lot others. Disabling it is a strict no-no from me.
However, there is no such Exception list as Windows Firewall has, for UAC. This at times does cause some annoyance if you are the admin and you are trying to run a program and every time you have to ‘Allow’ it.
There are two ways (other than disabling it) by which you can bypass eh UAC prompt for particular applications:
- Task Scheduler
- Elevate Me
The first method – Task Scheduler, is vcery useful incase you have scheduled a particular application to run on start-up and it needs the highest privileges. To do this:
Control Panel -> System Maintenance -> Administrative Tools -> Schedule Tasks
The same can be accessed from:
Start -> Administrative Tools -> Task Scheduler
From the scheduler, you need to Create a New Task. The wizard can be accessed from:
Task Bar -> Action (next to File) -> Create Task
Once the wizard opens, give suitable Name & Description. make sure that you check the ‘Run with highest privileges’ option. Screenshot:
From the 3rd tab (Actions), select the application that you want should run and choose OK. Screenshot:
This will launch the program (Limewire, in this case) at logon with highest privileges.
Another way to achieve the same is by using the utility called – Elevate Me. It uses the same method but instead of creating application actions to launch on start-up, it creates itself as a task to run on start-up and parses any application that you want should run with highest privileges.
To bypass UAC for particular application using this utility:
- Download the archive.
- Run the install.cmd file.
- Right Click on the application and choose Elevate me.
Screenshot:
There is an application that can be used to tame UAC is Tweak UAC, it is a free application.
Tweak UAC is a free software tool that you can use to quickly turn UAC (User Account Control of Windows Vista) on or off, or to make UAC operate in the quiet mode. Screenshot:
Keep UAC turned on, save yourself from trojans, happy computing.
Hey nice tutorial!
UAC, as I always say, is a life saver.
Why oh why did they have to make UAC so annoying?
Before the prompt comes the screen goes wonky, then for half a second it goes completely black, and then you get the UAC prompt. This is behaviour I’ve seen on all Vista machines so its not just me. If only there was some sort of gradual screen fading out with the prompt coming into focus it wouldn’t have been such torture.
@Goobi: A lot of users have said that the screen change is disturbing & from what I learn MS is aware of this and quite a few other such UI glitches faced by users.
yeah i remember the sudden influx and then UAC prompt.
i was clicking on download icon in download box, make it linked to the download, its tempting to click on the icon and then realizing the actual link is in text
I remember hearing of the UAC. I wonder why people b!tch it so much. Infact, I think its one of the *better* things about Windows Vista. Lots say its not as well implemented as in GNU/Linux. But personally speaking, I am glad that its atleast *there* in Vista. Thats around 600% the reason to get Vista instead of XP if you are buying a new computer.
Hey Thanks!!
My wife also uses the laptop, and she finds the UAC very irritating. I think I can save her from clicking on ‘Allow’ everytime.
@Ritesh: You’re welcome. This shall come in handy. I have used this on a couple of friends & family machines, it’s much better now.
@T: Ya, will have to edit the plugin for that, now that I have some time on my hands will play around with it.
@Metal: The implementation part that people said was more of ignorance. Initially, the developers didn’t understand the working of UAC (when prompts were given) and at the same time, MS too had a very rigid UAC system. Now things are quite different. Devs & MS both have improved the UAC system a lot.
As far as GNUs implementation is concerned, I hate the fact that it can’t be turned off and at the same time every time I need to enter my password for accessing the network settings. So, when people find flaws in UAC, I can find in the GNU implementation too ;)
@Manan Run as root user, no-UAC style prompts, contrary to Vista’s UAC prompts for Admin.
Logging in as a root user is a huge no-no, and sudo’ing everything is annoying. In my experience, the intrusion by the software is the point (for either UAC or SELinux/whatever). If you bypass it, you bypass the point of the software.
Whitelisting really makes sense to me. I’m not sure why they don’t have a way to whitelist executables. For something you run every day, giving the administrator password and marking the executable as safe is common sense. I’d have to search and read more actively than I’m able to at the moment to figure out why they’ve foregone that option.
Thanks for such a clever way around UAC. I’d imagine anyone running SpeedFan could benefit from this in Vista or in my case Windows 7. One less annoyance.
Thanks again!
Kyle
Hello try UAC Trust Shorcut 1.0 the BEST whitelist, made simple…:)
I like the ElevateMe as far as the writeup, but the link is broken to download it. Is there an updated download link. I would like to try it.
i am indonesian, how to remove permission UAC just one program ?