User Account Control (UAC) is a security feature in Windows 7 and Vista that allows users to restrict access to their computer by disabling or suspending accounts. UAC is a great way to keep your computer running smoothly and preventing potential problems. To disable or suspend UAC, follow these steps:

  1. Open the Start menu and type “uac” into the search bar.
  2. If you’re using Windows 7, open the “User Accounts” folder and find the “Local Security Authority” file. If you’re using Vista, open the “Computer Configuration” folder and find the “Security Settings” file.
  3. Copy the contents of the “Local Security Authority” file to the “User Accounts” folder on your computer.
  4. Open UAC in a text editor or word processor and edit its settings so that they match your needs. For example, you might want to disable password protection for accounts with weak passwords or for accounts that are not connected to the internet.

Note that this will make your system less secure before proceeding.

Windows 7 Makes it Easy

If you are running Windows 7, you can simply head into the UAC settings in Control Panel (or type UAC into the search box), and drag the slider down until you see “Do not dim the desktop”.

That’s all there is to it!

Windows Vista Business/Ultimate Users

To get to the configuration screen for this, type in security to the start menu search box. You should see the Local Security Policy as the top search item.

In the Local Security Policy window, browse down to Local Policies \ Security Options

Over in the right hand part of the window, scroll down near the bottom and find the item titled “User Account Control: Switch to the secure desktop when prompting for elevation”. Double-click on it to open it up, then change it to disabled:

At this point Secure Desktop should be disabled.

Windows Vista Home Users

For Windows Home users, you will need to open up regedit via the start menu search box. Browse down to this registry key:

Right-click in the right-hand pane and create a new 32-bit DWORD value called PromptOnSecureDesktop, setting the value to 0.

Downloadable Registry Tweak Just download, extract, and double-click on the DisableSecureDesktop.reg file to enter the information into the registry. There’s also an included EnableSecureDesktop.reg file to put things back to the way they were.

Download DisableSecureDesktop Registry Hack

Security Concerns

You can see by the large number of comments that this article is controversial. It’s true, disabling security features will always make your system less secure, and you should strongly consider the consequences before you make any change like this.