This article is for all of you who are currently running or planning on running Windows Vista. If you are unclear about what UAC is, it stands for User Account Control. It's purpose is to help make Windows Vista the most secure OS Microsoft has released. Unfortunately, for administrators and techies, it can be the most annoying thing while trying to do what used to be a simple task such as the command ipconfig /release. But the whole point of UAC is when the computer tries to do anything that requires Admin privileges, it will pause everything including any piece of code executing, and wait for your permission to do the task.

But before you go ahead and disable it, you should ask yourself "Should I disable UAC?" Well UAC can be very valuable, especially while executing code you are not familiar with. A prime example is a piece of code I will give you to disable UAC. If it weren't for UAC, one could actually disable your mouse and keyboard and do all sorts of evil things with your computer while you sit there at their mercy. Now, I am sure if you are reading this, you have already reached the point of frustration where you could care less about what UAC protects and just want to know how to disable it.

- Option 1 - A simple executable

A quick easy way to do it is to download a .exe I created that automatically does it for you. The only problem with this option is it assumes that you still have the search function built into Start menu. If there is high demand, I will create another one that doesn't require the search. If you don't feel safe downloading .exe's from strangers, you can download the script that was used to create it, but it requires AutoIT to compile.
Executable (.exe) -OR- Script (.au3)

- Option 2 - Via Control Panel

Go to your User Accounts located in the Control Panel (Start Menu > Control Panel > User Accounts) and select Turn User Account Control on or off. You will then be prompted by the UAC asking if you sure you want continue. Accept and uncheck the box next to Use User Account Control (UAC) to help protect your computer. You will then have to restart before the change will take affect.

- Option 3 - Via Command Prompt

The final option is doing it via command prompt. First start the command prompt with Administrative privileges, open your start menu and type cmd and push CTRL+Shift+Enter or navigate to \Windows\System32\ and right click on cmd.exe and select Run as Administrator. Then you can put this line of code into the command prompt (easiest to copy and paste).

%windir%\System32\reg.exe ADD HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System /v EnableLUA /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f

And to reverse this process, simply change the 0 towards than end to a 1. Again, to make actually have it take affect, the system must be rebooted.