white poison industries

Welcome to the Blue Screen Of Death. In my postings, I will try to input some tips, tricks, and reviews of random computer related stuff. I will try to put in topics that are open for discussion that we can all debate on. Most of which is geared toward the Windows PC based computers. Nothing wrong with Macs and I am not here to start flaming brands as I do have a high level of respect for Apple and their products alike, but I speak of which I know and what I know is PC. Some of my posts might be a bit complex or technical, so if you don’t understand something and you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to comment and I would be glad to answer them best I can. If you have any suggestions, post those as well and then check back as i will try to answer what i can, best I can.

With that said, let’s get started on the first post.

Are you one of the many who is running Windows Vista? If so, you will know exactly what I am talking about. Yep, I’m laying the smack down about that friggin annoying box that always pops up asking for your permission. As a computer repair business, this is the most often requested item, so I thought I would share some insight. Seems like that damn thing pops up for just about anything we try to do. Do you find yourself talking to yourself and saying things like “Of course I want to grant permission. I wouldn’t have clicked on it if I didn’t want it to have permission, now would I”? It might not affect everyone as much, but if it does you, here is what I would do.

Don’t you just want to put a restraining order on it and have it to never contact you again? Well, you can. There are a few ways to do it. I will tell you the best way. If you don’t care about the why’s and what’s and just want it to stop now, then bypass all the jargon and scroll down to the solution.

JARGON:
First, a little insight as to what exactly it is. It’s called User Access Control or UAC for short and it’s currently in Windows Vista and the Windows 7 beta. It is a security feature that is built into the operating system. In Vista, although your user is an administrator, you are running as a limited user most of the time. Then when you need to install something, or access a system tool, it gets all up in your grill and asks you if you’re sure and if you click “allow”, it elevates your privileges and give you administrator privileges for that task. Once complete, it sets your privileges back to limited level for your security until needed again. This way if something tries to sneak up on you, it alerts you and can’t just automatically install because in theory, you’re not actually logged on as an administrator. Of course there are hackers out there that will sooner or later find a way around it so it isn’t foolproof but it does help and I don’t recommend you shut it off. If a person can program it, there is another person who can hack it.

There are a few types of privileges that a Windows computer user can have. If you run XP or any of its previous and some unsupported ancestors and you just install the software and go without any user additions or tweaking, you’re automatically an administrator privilege of that account. If you add a user, like your kids or sibling or “life partner”, then you have the choice of their user rights. You can make them an administrator or a user with limited access. There is also a Guest user that can log on, but not many people use this feature so I won’t talk about it.

A limited user normally can’t install program, add or delete accounts, change any settings, run any system level tools, etc. For the most part, it’s sort of like your married and only allowed to do the things your spouse will let you do. You can still enjoy most of life, but you are watched and restricted. If you need anything added to your computer, you have to contact the administrator and have them do it for you. There are of course ways to stray and do some old fashion hacking, but that topic is for another time.

Now, as an administrator, they have complete access to the computer and everything on it and what it does. They can change any setting, install/remove any program, delete any file, add a new user and modify their password and user rights at any time. If this person gets hella pissed at you, they can kick your ass to the curb by deleting your entire user account. All your mp3’s, all your saved YouTube files, downloads of full body cast, all your hours and hours of saving free porn pictures and celebrity side-boob shots… one or two clicks… *POOF* gone. So, better watch your back.

The problem is that when you run your user account as an administrator and then you as the administrator accidentally clicks yes and installs “Antivirus XP 2008” or gets a different virus via peer-to-peer program and runs some back door trojan program and it takes over your whole computer, now you are screwed and screwed good. Not the “I feel like 50 miles of bad road to rubber leg city” kind of screwed. I’m talking “I have no arms and no legs and someone threw me into a swimming pool” kind of screwed. Best you can hope for is that either you know how to remove this, or save your money and pay someone who can remove it for you. You could have avoided this by either a) not installing something that pops up out of nowhere and be more careful, b) don’t download anything called “One Night In Paris.EXE” from Limewire or the likes, or c) have your user account with limited privileges and if you know you need something installed or a setting changed, you can switch users and log on as the admin and have that account install it for you, then switch back.

So, in Vista, if a program you didn’t click on tries to install, it alerts you to say “Hey, did you do this?”, you have the power to say NO! But if you did initiate the contact, you have to again say YES.

Disabling it via the Control Panel/Users Accounts will bypass it along with some of the good this does. You won’t get the prompt anymore, but you also won’t get the admin privileges as well. I still recommend you don’t disable it at all, but if you’re like me and love to walk the razors edge and you want to get this stalker from following you, here is how I would do it. I will need those admin privileges for some programs in the future so I will “disable” it by actually making it like I always pressed “allow” and “continue” each time. I can hack the registry and change a flag that will not prompt this box anymore and will allow me to install programs and run tools as an administrator. It does have its downside as your system will be completely open again like the older versions of windows so make sure you feel secure enough to do this.

SOLUTION:
Always, always, ALWAYS back up your registry before doing any kind of registry hack. If you’re not comfortable in the registry, don’t go there. One bad click or delete, your computer may never be the same and if you didn’t back up, you may have to re-install windows all over again. If you don’t know what a registry is, then this is defiantly not a hack for you. If you are comfortable in the registry and you take full blame for everything that may go terribly wrong, then here is what I would change.

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System\ConsentPromptBehaviorAdmin

By default it is a DWORD of 2 hex. Change it to a 0 (zero) and your off and running as a full time administrator. If you ever feel like you want that piece of mind back, you can always come back and change it from the zero back to a 2.

Happy hacking,
Dale