In Windows Vista, the screen goes dark when the User Account Control window comes up, which is extremely annoying. They call it the “Secure Desktop”, but I think it’s obnoxious.
Note that this will make your system less secure before proceeding.
Update: Windows Vista Home users should use the registry patch at the bottom of the article instead.
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 the item, and change it to disabled and then click OK.
Note: This does make your system slightly less secure, so be warned.
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:
Code:
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System]
You should see a key called PromptOnSecureDesktop. Double-click this and change the value to 0
Update (Rant about security)
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.
Making the change discussed in this article will give somebody the ability to “hijack” the UAC dialog… Of course, that would mean they already got spyware or virusware on your computer. Seems to me that if they already got that far, to where they have an application running on your system… that they could pretty much do anything they wanted to anyway. All of the files that you care about would be owned by your local user account, so they could get into anything they want at that point.
You should also note that if you are not logged in as an “Administrative” user account, then this change will still result in the password dialog, which couldn’t be quite as easily hacked. You aren’t using the administrator account if you are worried about security are you?
I should finally mention that if you are really that worried about security, you can always switch to Ubuntu Linux. The “UAC” mode in linux is much simpler, especially in Ubuntu. You are only prompted for your password the first time you try to make a system change, and then it doesn’t ask you again for a few minutes, as opposed to every single administrative function you click in Windows Vista. It’s a pity they don’t bundle linux with virtualization of Windows.