Windows 8 file permissions vs Windows 7

Question

I have read How do I disable administrator prompt in Windows 8?, and it did not solve my problem.

When I upgraded from Windows 7 Pro 64-bit to Windows 8 Pro 64-bit, I noticed some permissions issues not present in the past.

While using Windows 7 or Vista with UAC off, I was able to navigate around the filesystem as if I was on Windows XP and prior such that I didn't have to run as administrator and could copy and edit files wherever I wanted.

In Windows 8, turning off UAC no longer does this.

For example, I can't copy a file from a network location to C:. C: is open to members of the administrators group, and I can copy from D: to C: no problem; although, it does prompt me. In Win7, it never prompted me in any such case.

In another instance, some of the files on D:, which I created years ago, are somehow requiring UAC prompts for me to delete them or run as administrator to edit them. This also means I cannot touch those files from a network drive. In Win7 this issue did not ever show itself.

Lastly, I can't modify the hosts file without doing a run as administrator. In the past I could do anything I wanted with a command prompt, but now I have to be running as administrator to do what I used to do.

Does anyone know how to get Windows 8's permissions to act like Windows 7 and Vista when UAC is disabled?

NOTE: I did a clean install on my laptop with Windows 8, and it has the same issues.