Administrator?

With XP, I never had to worry about not being the administrator. With Win 7, it looks like this is a separate account now.. right?

Why is it that me, the administrator, who INSTALLED the OS, is not using the administrator account?

I don't get it.. is there a reason why I would ever need to use the "Run as Administrator" command? What's the point of having the admin as a separate account completely?

Security reasons to prevent rogue applications and other malicious code from running.

Linux uses a model where normal users account can not have admin privlidges and certain tasks will always have to be elevated to admin status to use. unless you log onto root which is bad practice.

I can see the merit of this when in a networked situation or when multi users is involved but for myself personally... I like to be logged in at the highest elevated state possible so I never have to elevate a window or log in as a different user. every extra click pisses me off... I spend a lot of time on computers and hate wasting time.

UAC was actually the first thing I disabled after I installed Win 7

I don't see where it mentions anything about the administrator account though in that link...

I can see the merit of this when in a networked situation or when multi users is involved but for myself personally... I like to be logged in at the highest elevated state possible so I never have to elevate a window or log in as a different user. every extra click pisses me off... I spend a lot of time on computers and hate wasting time.

- Well yeah, I'm sure it is better to have this enabled by default, as the average user really doesn't care. But people that know what they're doing on their computer, that have only ONE user account on the machine, should be able to be the administrator and not have to "run as administrator" ever.

Is this not possible?

After disabling UAC and all the other stuff in Win 7 (windwos defender, action center, security center...) I have no issues running stuff without right click running as admin.

There is a seperate administrator account but it is disabled by default. If you are having troubles with your user account make sure it is in the Administrator user group. You can check these in the computer management MMC snap-in.

Merlin2000 said:

UAC was actually the first thing I disabled after I installed Win 7

I don't see where it mentions anything about the administrator account though in that link...

I can see the merit of this when in a networked situation or when multi users is involved but for myself personally... I like to be logged in at the highest elevated state possible so I never have to elevate a window or log in as a different user. every extra click pisses me off... I spend a lot of time on computers and hate wasting time.

- Well yeah, I'm sure it is better to have this enabled by default, as the average user really doesn't care. But people that know what they're doing on their computer, that have only ONE user account on the machine, should be able to be the administrator and not have to "run as administrator" ever.

Is this not possible?

Sure is.

The account set up when win 7 is installed by default admin. the problem is in win 7 apps are installed by a special group called "trusted Installer".

First make sure your user account is admin in user cpanel (realize there are security risks in running as admin)

As admin you can add yourself to the trusted installer group.

let us know if that doesnt help

Ken

As admin you can add yourself to the trusted installer group.

- How do I do that? I'm already on an "Administrator" account, this is different than the "Administrator" user, right?

After disabling UAC and all the other stuff in Win 7 (windwos defender, action center, security center...) I have no issues running stuff without right click running as admin.

- All that stuff is already disabled on mine.. I've seen a lot of tutorials say you need to run something as an admin, so I want to be able to skip that step by already being the "admin"

If your account is in the admin and trusted intaller groups then you should be able to bypass the run as admin step.

1. Right-click My Computer in your start menu and click Manage.
   
2. When the Computer Management window opens, expand Local Users And Groups in the left pane. (You may need to expand System Tools if you don’t see Local Users And Groups.)
3. Select Groups and double-click Administrators in the right pane.
4. Click the Add button
5. In the Select Users dialog box, enter a user account name.
6. Click OK.

Repeat for trusted installer group.

I don't have a trusted installer group listed.. According to the info displayed within the Administrators group, I'm already listed under the Administrator group.

trusted installer is new to me to sorry about that.

I haven't had any situations that required me to manually run as admin so not sure what to say at this point.