UAC Confusion! Why one and not the other?

Hi,

I'm a little confused as to why the UAC box appears on some programs EVERY TIME I use them, but not others.

To use a specific example...my LIVE Messenger (MSN) asks everytime I click the taskbar icon if I want to allow it to run and yet, when I launch Skype from the taskbar it just opens without any prompts.

At some point in the recent past I think I used the compatibility mode for XP on MSN and/or ticked the Run As Administrator box too. After that the icon has the little blue and yellow shield (is there a proper name for this?). Prior to this MSN opened, like Skype, without prompting.

I have unchecked both the compatibility mode and Administration in the MSN properties but the shield remains and the UAC prompt still appears every time which is a little tedious!

Is there a way to make it go back to just opening without disabling UAC across the board? Or at least to get rid of that shield?

I'm playing Far Cry at the moment which also has the shield on the shortcut icon, it'd be nice if this didn't prompt me every time I play too!

Any advice would be welcome as it seems silly to me to have to do this for programs I use every day!

Thanks for reading

Mark

Tasks that require admin privileges bring up the UAC prompt. The only solution i can think of is to modify the local security policy to elevate without prompting. Remember there may be security ramifications in this, so be careful and try at your own risk.

1)Click on Start button, then type secpol.msc and hit enter.
2)Expand the Local Polices Folder.
3)Drill down to Security Options folder.
4)Scroll down to the group of settings beginning with 'User Account Control'.
5)Locate User Account Control Behaviour elevation prompt for administrator. Double click and set to: Elevate without prompting.
6)Restart computer.

see if this solves your problem.

Hi, thanks for the suggestions. The first idea didn't work, the shield remains and the prompt still appears. I understand that the Shield signifies that you've chosen to run a program "as Administrator" so it's odd that unchecking "Run as Ad" doesn't get rid of it!

The second option may work but I'd rather not compromise the security at this stage being rather an amatuer at the behind-the-scenes stuff in Windows! I wouldn't want to remove the function completely, just from selected programs that I know are safe. And, more pertinently, ones that didn't use to ask at all!
If it REALLY starts bugging me then I may give it a go but I was hoping there would be a simpler option really...

Thanks again to both,

Mark

i would not recommend turning off UAC. This is a problem that has been seen in this forum and there is a tutorial that might help. It allows you to create new shortcuts from the existing program, but the shortcut does not prompt because it is set up as admin. If you need help, post in the following thread:

Edit/Correction: Known Problem replaced with This is a problem that has been seen on this forum (just because I have seen it doesn't mean its widely known)

More edits: oops posted wrong Tutorial. have not had coffee yet.... i will Post correct Tutorial once I find it

Here is the Tutorial I was suggesting:

Elevated Program Shortcut without UAC Prompt - Create

Mark,
Theres a small tool called TweakUAC. Download it (it doesnt need any installation as far as i know) and select the setting called Quiet mode. Of course, theoretically you dont need this tool because you can do it directly in the UAC settings in win7, but this one has a nice UI. You can switch off and switch on whenever you desire.

Thanks, I may have a look at TweakUAC, but it says not to bother if you have Windows 7 and I don't want to install unnecessary software if it can be avoided! But I'll certainly bear it in mind!

The Tutorial looks handy if rather laborious! Still, if there's no simpler way then that might be the path I wll follow! It just seems ridiculous that you can't simply tell the UAC to ignore certain programs when it's on a personal computer!

Ah well, better safe than sorry I guess!

Thanks once more!

OK, one last shot. Look at this.

Ignore UAC for specific programs - Martin Zugec blog