How to disable UAC

UAC or User Access Control is a feature of Windows that is meant to enhance the security of your system. Each time an application is installed or whenever an important system change is made by the user or by a running process, the screen is blacked out and temporarily disabled and a dialog is shown with the choices to allow or deny the action.

If the logged user is not an administrator, Windows will also ask for the administrator password. While this helps keeping your system safer from threats, it can also be very annoying and sometimes confusing.

In this guide we will show you how to disable this feature of Windows. Before we start, we must remind you that disabling UAC is not recommended by Microsoft because it can expose you to a lot more security threats. If you still choose to disable it please make sure you have proper security in place for your system.

To disable the UAC, enter the Control Panel and type UAC in the search box.

In Windows 10 type “Change user account control settings” to the search in the bottom-left corner of the screen,

The first result returned by the search will be User Accounts – Turn User Account Control (UAC) on or off.

Control Panel

Click on it and the UAC window will open. Deselect the option Use User Account Control (UAC) to help protect your computer and press the OK button.

UAC

Windows Vista will ask you to restart your computer. After the restart, UAC will be disabled and all the confirmation requests will no longer bug you.

Related articles:

Disable User Account Control (UAC) for certain Windows Vista applications
Manage User Accounts

Recommended articles:

Running Vista Every Day! – UAC – The Good and The Bad
4 Ways to Make UAC Less Annoying on Windows Vista

38 thoughts on “How to disable UAC”

  1. Admin rights
    Can you help with a problem I am having with Vista permission?
    I quite like this idea of UAC. I mean I wouldn’t want any programs installing I havent asked.
    But one issue I do have is with the free McAfee security (or Norton I forget which) When it asks if I want to download updates I say yes. Then it starts to install them. It does most of them, but there is one or two things it cant update and says “We were unable to install updates as you do not have admin permission” But I have checked in my user accounts and both users, myself and the girlfriend, both do have admin accounts and not standard accounts.
    Do you know about this problem or how I can fix it without switching off UAC?

    • What version are you using?
      It depends on the version of Mcafee you are using. You might use an older version which is not too compatible with Windows Vista. You should try to see if they offer any upgrades. This should not happen if you use a Windows Vista compatible security solution.

  2. Vista security
    Not too sure about the version of McAfee. It was bundled free with the laptop I bought.
    If I uninstall and removed McAfee, how secure is Vista security on it’s own?

  3. It’s beyond overkill
    If it only did the annoying pop-up when a program was being installed, maybe…though if it’s a program being installed remotely, any good firewall/antivirus/malware should stop that activity. I found UAC was popping up anytime I clicked an icon to open an already installed program, and/or opening any program for the first time.

    It’s annoying, lame, and so very, very Microsoft…

  4. Admin rights
    Every time I install or download any new software, I am being asked for password of Admin despite of being in admin account. And even after typing the password its denying to continue the download/installing process.

    Could you please suggest me as what should be done?

  5. UAC
    I have a problem with UAC, i seem to have forgotten or changed the password and i dont have a CD to do a full install is there some way in which i can remove User account control without accessing it directly

    Thanks

  6. UAC
    My boss has vista on his laptop and hates the UAC thing, i just tried to remove it however now some of his applications don’t work so i had to add it again how do i solve this?

  7. UAC, you can NEVER be rid of it!
    I have like most of you been using windows software for years. In XP, excellent programmers have always found ways around things that get under your skin that are good for you and your computer.

    This UAC thing is driving me crazy, I have done the un-checking the box to turn it off and then gone to the registry and change whatever the value is to zreo and that doesn’t work either. In fact, I already had the zero in the location these fine folks talk about.

    I hope very soon that someone finds the solution, even turned off I still get a balloon that pops up telling me to check my security settings. You know what it’s telling, don’t you? TURN ON YOUR UAC!!!

    • Disabling UAC is really not that great of an idea.
      UAC is actually not that intrusive unless you’re running old software or software that isn’t developed properly.

      Rights promotion and demotion (basically what UAC does) has been a standard feature of UNIX and MacOS for years and is one of the reasons that Windows has had so many security issues over the years.

      It’s been my experience that once you start using a Vista machine for any extended time and have all your options configured, you’re not going to see UAC that much. That is, unless you’re constantly tinkering and messing with options. Which, is exactly what you want. You see, UAC makes sure that such configs and modifications are being performed by YOU and not some unauthorized application.

      If you’re seeing UAC everytime you’re running a program, chances are you can find a new version of it that will run with standard user rights instead of running natively in administrator rights, which is bad programming.

      What I ask my customers is: Does UAC really bug you that often that you want to leave your system wide open for compromise?

  8. UAC fix for Vista
    This is a lovely story – pity it has nothing to do with reality. I have been through the routines shown here several times and not enough matches to be able to make anything work.

  9. UAC in vista
    Does turning off UAC in vista have any implications with IE? One of our users is missing the lock symbol in his browser and I think its related to UAC.

    any advise would be appreciated.

    Neil

  10. Games and admin rights
    Ok I’m running 32 bit vista and for a few games when I put in the CD, eg Spore Creature Creator, nothing happens, as if there is no auto run going on. Now I’ve looked on forums and they say I need to give my autoruns administrative rights, is disabling UAC the same thing?

  11. UAC can be helpful
    I hated the UAC when I first started using Vista, but I started doing alot of downloading from the internet and found that it was helpful when I would pick up something bad. As soon as the program tries to alter the registry UAC kicks in and I realize I just downloaded something bad and I immediately begin to remove it. So unless you happen to be one of the unfortunate ones that got stuck with a pentium 4 with only a half gig of ram running Vista, it really isn’t that much of a problem. If your computer is slow UAC will take forever to load and can be very annoying.

  12. Removing UAC
    i just downloaded Ares ultra
    and it doesnt give me any results after i type in my search
    i heard that UAC was the problem do you think by me removing UAC will help let file sharing programs work on my computer.

  13. Administrator?
    When I try to turn my UAC off, it asks me for the administrator password. The problem is, my personal account isn’t the administrator account, and I don’t know the password to the administrator account. Any ideas?

  14. UAC
    I agree with ‘Biscuit’. UAC is a terrible idea for the average computer user, or even the above average. I’m not even sure its a good idea for professional network administrators. Dump it and get over it guys.

  15. Password pop up….
    okay it says “Click on it and the UAC window will open. Deselect the option Use User Account Control (UAC) to help protect your computer and press the OK button” when i click “Turn User Account Cotrol (UAC) on or off” instead of the deselect botton poping up the password thing pops up. how do i get rid of the password????

  16. UAC
    What the Benifits of UAC when the (UAC) use User Account Controller are enable but then, you do not disabled again for installing another program that you want to installed…Can you help me regarding my problem. I want to disabled the ( UAC ).. what should I do?.

  17. Admin _ USERS
    I had Yahoo messenger installed on my laptop but due to some reason it got corrupted so I uninstalled it and tried to install it again. Then i am getting an error of you need to rerun using admin login inspite of I am using admin login. Do not get this error while installing other application.

    I tried to create a new admin login with Administrator name and it says it is already created but can not see in users and also admin ID of my name, i can not change to standard user as it is grayed (not active)

    Could you please suggest me as what should be done?

  18. Denied access to folder
    My attempts to open a sub-folder, within a folder are met with ” You don’t have permission….” I am using Vista (very temporarily I must say), having transferred data from another computer running XP Pro ( may the force be with it). I have never designated a password to the computer, and have turned UAC OFF in an attempt to open the folder, which contains urgently required images (thankfully clean), and haven’t a clue what to do next

  19. Windows SecurityCenter
    I did as described, but then the SecurityCenter gives this warning every time I turn on the computer. Can I make this stop?
    Best regards, Anne

  20. disabled ok
    Hi i am trying to enable UAC but it gives error;

    when i am trying to configure something knew i cant because the ok button is disabled;

    he askes to press admnistrator password and continue.

    but ok button is disabled.

  21. Any one can please tell me
    Any one can please tell me how can recover admin password in UAC?

    Thanks for nice sharing.

  22. Draging the slider switch &
    Draging the slider switch & off llua (or whatever the spelling), it still ask for admin pass for certain things. Problem is I don’t have the pass I never set the pass. Damn it, this is reason I gave up on vista after using for a day.

    Now new pc WIndows 7 get this back bah! I miss my XP!

  23. UAC Restriction
    Can somebody please help me?
    I can’t turn of User Account Control because User Account Control asks for a administrative password to turn it off. Does anybody have a solution?

  24. win 7
    can anyone help me with getting this thing off? i forgot the password to my admin account and i cant do anything without the password. ive tried CMD commands, and a bunch of other stuff, but it either say “acsess denied” or asks for the password. HELP!

  25. USER
    Im not an Admin and i need to download some programs for my school project but it keeps asking me for a password that i don’t have. What should i do?

    P.S. their was never an Admin account made so i can’t ask for the password…

  26. adminstratior permissions
    Under user accounts, i’m listed as adminstratior but I can’t change it to administrator permissions. Somehow it got set to standard so I have no way ro restore or defrag my system. When I try to restore to inbox state. I can’t remember my password.

  27. turbo stick/windows 8
    i am trying to install my bell turbo stick using windows 8 and it keeps telling me to turn off my user account control and I have a hundred times whats wrong?

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