Changing UAC Permissions

Ok so the user account control thing is pretty ridiculous and wouldn't even let me change files in my program files folder and I am the only user on this comp so I am the admin. I had to turn off UAC to get access but I want to be able to have full access to my files but keep UAC on. Is there any way to turn UAC on and still have the ability to change files in my folders? I turned if off and tried to go into the permissions and give my username full access but it still wouldn't let me do it.

 

This should do:

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/112795-context-menu-take-ownership.html

Good luck.

 

I know you are not wanting to hear this, but if you are changing files under \PROGRAM FILES\ then either you are doing something you may not really want to be doing or you are running programs that are ill-behaved.

 

with windows7, the UAC now is adjustable to suite your needs. it's just not on or off, it can be adjusted according to your needs

 

I agree, but unfortunately, a fair amount of programs are ill-behaved.

Anyway, I suggest changing permissions on particular files and folders as needed, rather than trying to mess with all of Program Files.

 

I have upgraded or dumped all the ill-behaved programs I ran.

 

most of the ill-behaving programs get virtualised away, so when they write into the program folder, they write into another folder in your profile. so the only time where it really is an issue is if you mess in it manually, which you never ever should need to. and if, then not regularly, so the uac doesn't bother you if it's once all one or two month you have to do something there.

and if you have to work and manipulate regularly in the program files\yourcrapprogramofchoise folder, then change it's properties, so that normal users can change values in there. that way, the uac prompt goes away.

an example of this is steam, at installation time it changes the permissions on program files\steam so it can autoupdate and all, and games can have their settings in their own folder (which they shouldn't, but most games still do, crapcrap) and all is fine.

so if you need to, change permission. but you should question yourself if you need to.

 

ok first of all I don't get what "virtualization" is exactly?

also if I can easily add that take ownership option into the right click menu can as easily disown the file too? So if I want to adjust a file or something I could just take ownership real quick do whatever changes I want then after I'm done disown it again and return to the way it was before I took ownership?

 

For Windows Vista Home Basic/Home Premium:

1- Click Start, and type "cmd" in the search area, right click on "Command Prompt" and select 'Run as Administrator".

2- In the command prompt type "net users Administrator /active'" (Note the capital "A" in Administrator) and press Enter, you will get a confirmation as "The command completed successfully".

3- Click Start, and type "regedit" in the search area and click Enter, navigate to: [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System]
Double click on "FilterAdministratorToken" and set it to "0"

*************************************

Now log-off, and you'll see new account named "Administrator" is available, click on it to login.

Now you are the master of your domain! I recommend if you're going to use this method is to apply it as soon as you do a fresh install of Windows, so you can simply delete whatever administrator you've created in the setup process, and make this one the "real" administrator for your PC, also you can rename this new admin account or change its password like any other account from "User Accounts" in the Control Panel.

A last note: Please apply this procedures only if you know what you're doing. Disabling security features in the operating system is not something recommended to the average Joe, and for sure I won't be held accountable for any damaging happens to your system or files resulting from running a full administrator account all the time.

Enjoy!

1- Click Start, and type “secpol.msc” in the search area and click Enter.
2- You may receive a prompt from UAC, approve/login and proceed.
3- In the left list, choose “Local Policies”, then “Security Options”
4- Set “Accounts: Administrator account status” to Enabled.
5- Set “User Account Control: Admin Approval Mode for the Built-in Administrator account” to Disabled.
6- Now log-off, and you’ll see a new account named “Administrator” will be available, click on it to login.

 

or download this and run it from a elevated dos prompt:

takecontrol

but no way to keep uac and change those settings. you can try the norton uac alternative it allows you to remove annoying prompts by remembering choices.. but not exactly what you want

 

I'm not sure if I want to have full access all the time so I don't think I want to do the admin thing. What I want to be able to do is easily take ownership like with the right clicking thing and then remove ownership just as easily. That way I can have the security and then when I want to change something I can just take ownership real quick, do what I gotta do and then give control back to UAC. So can I give ownership back just as easily? if so, how?

 

you could just, for that ONE TIME YOU EDIT THAT FILE accept the uac promt? it's LESS HAZZLE.

the virtualisation thing is this, in simple:

imagine you install an old game to c:\program files\game\game.exe

the game then starts up and creates c:\program files\game\game.config which it isn't allowed to, as the folder is write only.

instead of putting the game.config in there, vista puts it into your user folder c:\users\yourname\appdata\somewhereinthere\game.config.

for the game, it's still where it expects it to be. but actually it's not really in there. that's virtualisation. the gain: if you have more than one user at the pc, each one has it's own config (just like it should work). and the app doesn't have to bother.

now if you go with explorer to c:\program files\game\ you see the config missing. there is a "compatibility files" button on top in explorer you can press, and get to your personal config file.




what is it, that you actually want to mess with? there may be such a simple fix for it. i hate that "close my eyes and ears and just cry" behaviour against uac. get used to it, and realise how simple it is to handle, and how good it is for you.

that's like "i don't want to use a savety belt", but then cry the day you got killed because you haven't.



edit: found a pic. it's even called that in english, wow

 

if it would let me access the program files with a prompt, I would be ok with that I would press the prompt everytime I don't care, but it doesn't do that it just says access is denied. its not this just one thing I want to do, otherwise I'd just turn off UAC and do it then put it back on and be done with it. I wanted to input saved files from a game on another comp btw. but the thing is I am gonna do things like that all the time and I don't want to have to turn UAC off and restart everytime I wanna do it.

I get what UAC is there for and I understand that its good but I want to be able to change my own files if I wish. Thats why I am asking how to give back ownership when I'm done.

 

If it is that much of a hassle, just turn it off.

End of story.

 

the files in windows and in program files are NOT your files. show me a reason you have to tweak them all the time.

and listen to my advice: if you have to manually edit all the time some sertain program, then change it's permissions in there and you NEVER GET AN UAC PROMT THERE EVER ANYMORE.

but don't expect vista to ever accept you messing around with all sort of systme files all over the place. it has the right to cry, then.



Working around the non-popping up of UAC when editing a protected file
Solution one
and yes, if you're in notepad, editing some readonly (due to correct permissions) file, then you can't save it directly. but you edited it with a big chance by opening it in explorer, so let that explorer window open and save to desktop, then drag it over back to where you want to overwrite. then UAC pops up and you can agree to it, done. it would be nice, if notepad would instead would pop up directly when saving, but this is based on technical reasons not possible (or else, everytime, a save fails, it would first pop up a uac, and then realise that save still fails, because it's "in use", or the network/disk target is not available anymore, etc..).

Solution two
alternatively, start notepad as an admin ( [start]notepad [ctrl+shift+enter][uac agree]) and open it there, then you can save.

 

and because I got bored of typing, CHECK MY SIG. I've made a nice visual powerpoint presentation showing it step by step.

 

the second post i made with the added file will grant full permission to all files so you dont have to take ownership of each one.

 

yeah, it's always good to grant full permissions to all files if you just want something tiny to edit?? </end sarkasm>

besides, your link is not available for nonmembers there.

i just set up a program that allows you to change and reset later the permissions of a folder to have non-admin-write access. i'll have to bundle it into an msi, then i can host it for everyone.

it does essentially what is in my powerpoint, too. but with a rightclick, and then chosing what ever one wants.. (access to myself, access to all users).

 

i thought he wanted to grant it to everything, my bad then

 

Unfortunately, turning UAC off doesn't completely solve the problem. I finally turned mine off a number of weeks ago, and there are still occasions when the system refuses to allow me to do something -- sometimes it makes complete sense, and I don't mind going through all of the hassle to circumvent the system, but other times it's totally random and stupid --- like yesterday, I was reorganizing and cleaning out my Favorites folder, when suddenly, after allowing me to do multiple Moves and Deletions, the system would not allow me to delete one particular Favorites entry! Obviously there was some corruption in that file that denied me ownership, but corruption or not, there was no way the system was allowing me to take ownership, change ownership, or do anything at all.

 

it may have been in use from explorer or so after too much fiddling around?

never had that problem, but had it on xp from time to time.

 

So let me get this straight. Your inability to delete a file had nothing to do with UAC, but you blame the inability on UAC?

 

LOL No, what I was trying to say was that one can still have some of the same type of problems, even after deleting UAC. Either "turning off" UAC doesn't actually turn off UAC entirely - i.e. there may be some UAC functions that the user doesn't have access to turn off, OR some of the problems that we ascribe to UAC are actually caused by other functions in the system. In my case, I don't know which of the above 2 situations it was, but all I do know is that I thought that it was UAC preventing me from deleting certain files, but even after turning it off, I still could not delete that Favorites file I mentioned. Capeesh?

 

this all has nothing to do with UAC and happens in xp, 2000, nt as well. it's the NTFS file system. it has (user and group) rights management built in. and the os obviously has to respect it and follow it (else, what for?! ). now if those rights somehow are messed up, you may be in trouble.


the only difference is: in UAC mode, you are by default only working with the usergroup rights. when you hit some place where that isn't enough, it will ask you to try the same again with admingroup rights.

with UAC mode off, you will by default run in the admingroup (as every unwanted exe, too).

that's the ONLY thing UAC does.

now if you can't delete a file then a) it's locked in use, or b) you don't have the right. that may be because even the admingroup doesn't have the right to it (it may be a file personalized to one user only (and not you), and admin rights taken away. if you believe that doesn't exist, it does: in every good company, the "my files" folder should be defined that admins have no right to get into it.)

UAC is nothing big. NTFS file rights system is. and they tweaked a lot of it in vista. changing for example the owner of all system files to "SYSTEM" (the user, which runs your services, for example), and took away user and admin rights to manipulate them. that way, only the system defined ways can touch them (windows update, for example). this is to prevent users to mess up the system. this has NOTHING to do with UAC. nothing.

you can set up xp exactly the same way. and with runas, and an other admin account, you get mostly the same behavior of the os (except for the same uac-dialog-desktop environment that doesn't allow viriis to press "continue" on a uac dialog). the trick is, in xp, you have to configure it manually that way. vista is by default that way.

 

Sometimes, even in far older operating systems from MS, it was possible to override this by changing the shortcut "Start In" value.

 

I wonder if this kid ever solved his problem.

 

or actually had a real problem...

and yes, AKAJohnDoe, you're right. you can move the game to another folder, too. but i don't like that. i like to have everything at it's default ment-to-be-place. and then tweak the stuff that doesn't work how it should by fixing it where it is. more "clean" imho.

but there are tons of ways to handle such problems and issues.

 

Start In moves nothing; it only declares the default location in which the program is to be started - which often causes associated run-time files (.ini; .dat) to be created there.

 

yep, and so your program stores it's configs in a non-default place. very fun if someone has to support that machine and tries to edit some config file to just not find it (yes, been there, done that .. more than once.. hating it ).

while the app itself is at the default place, not all of the app is. and that's a bad thing imho.