User Account Control is one of the most hated features in Windows Vista because of its constant annoying messages.  In Windows 7 UAC is a lot better and you can still tweak it to your liking. Here are a couple of tips.

Modify UAC Settings

You can make Windows 7 UAC less intrusive, or more vigilant, or turn it off completely. To change the default settings:

1. Go to the Control Panel – User Accounts and Family Settings
2. Click User Accounts and then Change User Account Control settings
3. A new window will open
4. 
5. Now use the slider to set the protection level that suits you
6. Click OK.
7. You may need to restart. Depends on what you selected.

Use Gadgets Without UAC

If you turn UAC off, you won’t be able to run gadgets that run on your desktop. Windows regards them as a security threat, you see. However, that threat is only potential and most likely nothing bad will happen. If you are comfortable with that, here’s how to use gadgets with UAC turned off:

1. Create a Restore point or backup the Registry, because you’ll need to edit the Registry
2. Type regedit in the Search bar and press Enter to launch Registry Editor
3. Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Sidebar\Settings
4. Create a new DWORD value called AllowElevatedProcess. To do that select Edit - New DWORD (32-bit) Value and name it AllowElevatedProcess
5. Set its value to 1
6. Close Registry Editor. Right-click the desktop and select Gadgets. Now you will be able to add and use gadgets as you would normally.

If you are a Windows Vista user, then no doubt you know what User Account Control (UAC) is. Some people find this feature really annoying, forgetting that it’s there for a reason.

UAC automatically protects your system from potential security breeches by forcing users that are part of the local administrators group to behave as if they were regular users. Whenever a user who is a member of the local administrators group attempts to perform a task that requires administrative privileges, the operation gets halted and the user is prompted to acknowledge it before proceeding.

If the user is not a member of the local administrators group and tries to perform a task that requires such privileges, he is asked to enter valid administrative credentials. This means that unless this user is an administrator, he won’t be able to change anything on your computer, since in Vista standard users are prohibited from installing most programs, changing system settings and so on.

Clearly, User Account Control is a very useful feature, but if you are sure you don’t need it and it annoys you way too much, here is how you can disable it:

1. Go to Control Panel
2. Click on Add or remove user account under User Account and Family settings
3. Click on any user account
4. Under the user account click on Go to the main User Account page
5. Then click Change security settings under Make changes to your user account
6. Deselect Use User Account Control (UAC) to help protect your computer and click OK. You will have to reboot your computer for the changes to take effect.

If you change your mind and decide to switch UAC back on, just select the above checkbox and reboot.