Windows Vista User Account Control

One of the latest additions to Windows is the User Account Control system or so called UAC. Even though we have already experienced similar feature (Limited Account, User Account Protection etc) in earlier versions of Windows, this time it is slightly different. This security feature prevents ‘standard user‘ from running programs that may harm the entire system. Hence you are forced to provide the administrative access to run programs that requires administrative rights.

Even administrators are not given full access to the important tasks. By default administrators are given only ‘Administrative Approval Mode‘ access rights, where they are forced to answer a small dialogue box to confirm they are running such programs. UAC differentiates the tasks that actually require administrative privileges. You can identify the programs that need administrative privileges by the shield logo in program icons.

UAC also allows you to temporarily use administrative rights to run programs even when you are running as a standard user. In Windows XP, same things can only be completed by switching users.

You can configure UAC settings by editing group policy settings. (gpedit.msc)