How do I get full administrative privileges in Windows 7?

Question

Possible Duplicate:
How to run Windows 7 Explorer shell with Administrator Privileges by default

I recently reinstalled Windows 7, and I have this issue that whenever I try to write a file to a 'sensitive' folder such as C:\Program Files, or C:\Windows, I get a warning if I want to continue or not ..

Also, I an unable to write anything to the C:\ root directory, and many programs I normally use often have problems when trying to make any changes .. For example, MATLAB is unable to to modify its own path file ...

Just to let you now, I have the UAC control set to 'Never Notify' (i.e. completely disabled), and I am logged in as a user part of the 'Administrators' user group ..

I know that manually setting 'Run as Administrator' value to true for individual EXEs will probably solve the problem with respect to them, but how can I automatically run EVERYTHING as an Administrator .. ?

Answer 1

Setting UAC to 'Never Notify' doesn't completely disable it. The system will still protect certain key areas of the OS. To completely and totally disable UAC, you have to edit the registry, use Group Policy, msconfig, or through the Users control panel applet.

Instructions here. Use at your own risk! Personally, if I have applications that need to write to their own app directory, I would grant Modify permissions to the Users group on that specific folder. Or use Microsoft Application Virtualization. Or just one of the compatibility modes and then look in %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\.

Answer 2

Its a Huge security hole to run everything as Administrator, you can do it but it will allow malware, viruses, worms etc, to do Anything it wants.

You should always install Software as administrator in Windows 7, this sets permissions for that program to write to sensitive areas, uninstall the software, reinstall it by right clicking on it and select "run as administrator"

If the program was not designed for W7, you need to install it in compatibility mode along with administrator, right click on the Installer and select Properties > Compatibility Tab, set the compatibility mode for the OS it was designed for and tick the run as admin box, hit OK and install the program. This solves many issues with older programs.