How to make Vista's User Account Control less annoying?

Windows Vista's UAC (User Account Control) feature is, for most of us, a constant annoyance, A little work on it can make a good going. Turning it off entirely can leave the system vulnerable to online threats. Fortunately, we can do a bit of fine-tuning via the Group Policy Object Editor (GPOE) to disable the most irritating parts of this feature without ditching it altogether.

Start Run >> gpedit.msc UAC Prompt Find at the left pane: Local Computer Policy\Computer Configuration\Windows Settings\Security Settings\Local Policies\Security Options Click Security Options and opt at right for User Account Control options

To retain the benefits of UAC, leave it turned on but set it to stop prompting you. Double-click User Account Control : Behavior of the elevation prompt for administrators in Admin Approval Mode.

Choose Elevate without prompting, click OK ignoring a pop-up which complains that UAC is not on.

UAC prompt can also be suppressed entirely however it's not as safe as the default settings, I guess.

Windows Vista Home Premium does not have the GPOE (Group Policy Object Editor). Here's an alternative:

Start Run >> regedit Find and go to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE_SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System At the right pane, edit ConsentPromptBehaviorAdmin changing the value to 0.

The effect to the changes/editor is immediate.

Important: Please, be cautious while working with the Windows Registry, a back up is always intended. Visit more hacks on registry editing on previous geeklog posts here.