I’m pretty pissed about Vista in general. Shit it forced my latest career change. When you deploy Microsoft Operating Systems for a living and the public decides to hate the product you NEED to take off to pay the bills because of competitor ad campaigns… well you take a step back and try to figure out whats coming next.

Don’t get me wrong I think Vista is a great operating system and I haven’t had a problem with it. Even 64 bit is coming along better than I expected. Soon, there will be Windows 7, which I think is going to have a larger 64bit install base than 32bit. Expect the Windows after that to be only 64bit. So haters need to realize the future is 64bit multi-core and that future runs through Vista (even if it is only the gateway to Win7). Games are going to support quad cores on the regular come next year. Crysis and FarCry 2 already do it. Yes, hopefully next year that list will contain games actually worth installing but at least some developers are trying. With such demanding applications comes the need for 4GB+ RAM and that leaves XP on the curb. Oh its coming.

Microsoft, believe it or not, makes so much possible if you just want to get your hands dirty. Not everyone does want to get their hands dirty and they should mapquest the closest Apple store.  

Lets look at making use of a real benefit to Vista that is highly annoying but to me very welcomed, UAC. The thing that pops up “all the fucking time”. The ammunition of every Vista hater and Mac fanboy on the planet. The thing your buddy told you to turn off as soon as you get your new computer.

Here is how to live with UAC.

Right after you install Vista, you probably have a ton of customization to do, a ton of apps to install, a bunch of drivers to update and a activation crack to run. You can expect about 50 UAC prompts per hour for all different stuff. So turn it off for those first few days. Then turn it back on.

If you use an application that the software developers haven’t coded to work without UAC prompts and you run it on the regular, you can make it so you don’t get UAC prompts for that application. I have one that I like to run at startup. I could pay for the software and get the updated version without UAC prompts but I’m cheap and my cracked version is old. If you try to put a app in startup that causes a UAC prompt Vista says “fuck that noise” and supresses it from running and alerts you in the system tray that it has disabled some startup objects.

So here is how you can make any application that requires a UAC prompt to run, to never prompt for UAC again. Then you can put it in startup if you want.

• Download and install Microsoft ACT (Application Compatibility Toolkit)

• Once installed, hit up the start menu and right click the newly installed Compatibility Administrator and click run it as administrator.

• In the left of the window you will see Custom Databases -> New Database. Left click on New Database(1) [Untilted 1] so it highlights.

• Hold control and press P. Alternativley, right click and select Create New -> Application Fix.

• Enter the name and other details of the application you want to supress the UAC prompts on and then browse to it. Click Next.

• Click Next until you are in the Compatibility Fixes screen.

• On the Compatibility Fixes screen, find the item RunAsInvoker, and check it.

• Click Next and then Finish.

• Select File and Save As. Save the file as fix.SDB in a directory you will easily find it. You will have to type this directory in the command prompt so choose something that’s easy to find from the command prompt (not my documents / not your desktop). I for example chose “c:\stuff”.  If you don’t have a directory on the root of one of your drives that you work out of for things like this, I’d suggest creating one. Even if you go all original call it c:\temp. Or you can be lazy and save it to c:\windows

• Bring up the start menu. Lets make use of another great Vista feature, the new search. See that bar right above the Vista Orb/Start Button that says Start Search that you probably have never used. Its fucking great. Lets find your command prompt with it. Start typing Command into the search bar. Woah I bet it came right up for you. Right click Command Prompt and click Run as administrator. If you want to be old school Command prompt is under All Programs -> Accessories.

•  Run the following command at the prompt :

sdbinst <THEPATH>\fix.sdb

Where <THEPATH> is the location where you have saved the fix.sdb file. If you saved the .SDB file as fix.sdb in the c:\Windows folder, the command should be like this:

sdbinst c:\windows\fix.sdb

• You will now get a confirm message.

• Boom goes the dynamite you are done. Vista will no longer prompt you with the UAC everytime you open that app.

Consider yourself Windows Expert. Leave the Vista hating where it belongs, in the hands of uninformed, clueless users.

Edit for clarity: This does not run applications as administrator without a UAC prompt. See that would defeat the purpose of UAC all together. This just removes the flag on outdated/badly programmed applications that require UAC prompts but don’t actually require admin rights to run.

The problem with UAC is the lack of the option to remember an application. Because of this Vista users are accustomed to excess prompting and see it as a hassle to click continue. Then users start clicking continue out of habit without thinking about it. Microsoft has already promised changes to this for Windows 7.

If you want some of these changes now, you can look into Nortons free utility that offers the ability to not prompt you again on applications that you allow or deny.