I had lately somewhat problems with UAC… not UAC per se, but more the switch to the secure desktop. I’m sitting here behind 3 wide-screen desktops with a resolution of 1920 * 1200 each. My old video cards have some problems with these mega-screens and therefore simply respond a little slower. Aero works OK, but only with all the extra animations disabled. (I’m getting some new cards soon, so that problem is luckily resolved soon enough.)

Once the secure desktop for UAC kicks in, the 3D Accelerator of the card gets temporary disabled. So the system also switches from 3D video mode back to plain old 2D to show the UAC confirmation. On these old cards this transition took more than 45 seconds, which is enough to become a very big annoyance. Since I develop software for a living, I see those UAC prompts at least 20 times a day.

Disabling UAC is not an option, simply because of company policy. As an alternative I choose to go for disabling the secure desktop instead. This is not as secure as the default settings, but it does allow me to quickly use UAC. (Malware could get a handle of the window and press the continue button for me.) Since I am quite sure that no malware is running on my PC I guess that this thread is negligible for the moment.

How to disable the secure desktop without disabling UAC?

• Start –> Run –> gpedit.msc
• Select in the treeview:
• Computer Configuration
• Windows Settings
• Security Settings
• Local Policies
• Security Options
• Select the policy: “User Account Control: Switch to the secure desktop when prompting for elevation”
• Select “Disabled”

Once you have done these steps, you’ll notice that the secure desktop will no longer show up on UAC prompts. Again, do this only when you know what you are doing, because that secure desktop is there for a reason.

-- Jeroen

Monday, May 25, 2009 10:27:50 AM (Pacific SA Standard Time, UTC-04:00)      Comments [0]