how to run every app as administrator

zdoe · 15 Feb 2011

background - too many apps are not aware of win7 security policies, and troubleshooting errors stemming from this based on non-descriptive error messages - or none at all - is taking way too much time.

if i didn't want to be an administrator, i wouldn't run my box using an admin account, right?

so - how to run everything as admin?

i do have UAC on the lowest level of the slider, which, it's said, disables it, but it seems to me that it's still not completely out of the system.

(yes, i'm aware that this is a security risk. but the alternative is a sanity risk.)

The Howling Wolves · 15 Feb 2011

Check this great tutorial out...
Run as Administrator

zdoe · 15 Feb 2011

i've seen that tutorial, but it only advices on how to run "a" program as an admin. i need a system-wide fix where all traces of UAC are gone and everything runs as admin.

Brink · 15 Feb 2011

Hello zdoe,

The easiest way to do this is to enable the built-in Administrator account, and log on to it to use instead. While you are logged in to the built-in Administrator account, everything runs as administrator without UAC prompts.

Having everything to run as administrator automatically like this is strongly not recommended though. Everything will also include any malware or viruses if your computer gets infected as well. Since these malicious programs will also run as administrator like this, they will have full control of your computer without you even knowing it.

The safer option here would be to use OPTION THREE in the tutorial below as Howling Wolves suggested to manually have set each program that you want to run as administrator with UAC approval whenever you run it.

Run as Administrator

Hope this helps some,
Shawn

zdoe · 15 Feb 2011

shawn - yes - this helps. i had kind of come to expect that this was the answer. but do you know of any way of elevating my current half-admin account to the level of the real-admin as the system account is - or merging the accounts?

viruses are overrated. most of them are easy to nix, and killing a virus you're battling a known, usually single entity, whereas app-specific uac hassles are mostly undocumented and often with nothing pointing to the source of the problem.

basically i'd like 7 to be xp, + GPT partitions and larger addressable memory pool.

Brink · 15 Feb 2011

You could use the To Elevate Administrators Privilege Level for no Prompting by UAC step in either method in the tutorial below to elevate your normal administrator account to be almost like the built-in Administrator account. It works the same in Windows 7 as well.

User Account Control (UAC) - Elevate Privilege Level - Vista Forums

zdoe · 15 Feb 2011

i've done this registry hack, but the "run as administrator" option is still on the right-click menu, and my current understanding is that this only removes the nag screen saying, in effect: did you REALLY just click that button?

& someone somewhere was writing similar observations where not everything runs as admin despite this.

or am i mistaken?

but i do assume that using the system's admin account makes for a real admin.

Brink · 16 Feb 2011

It's close, but not exactly the same as actually being logged on to the built-in Administrator account.

zdoe · 16 Feb 2011

see - if you ask me, if it looks like a virus and acts like a virus, it IS a virus, even if given to us by bill himself. UAC pops up screens you don't want to see, and prevents you in unexpected ways from doing what you wanted to do. that's what a virus does.

this one's probably the hardest to nix of what i've seen so far.

Brink · 16 Feb 2011

If you use the built-in Administrator account, then it will give you what you are looking for though.

I know UAC can be a pain sometimes, especially with old programs, but it really is a last line of defense to give you the user a chance to allow or prevent something from running elevated via a UAC prompt before it does and has full access and permission of the whole computer. If you are interested, the contents in the NOTE box in the tutorial below gives much more details about UAC and it's purpose.

User Account Control - UAC - Change Notification Settings