User Account Control In Windows Vista

Microsoft tried something new with user accounts in Windows Vista. In the past, the purpose of having separate accounts was to make it easy for more than one person to use a single PC: each user got his or her own desktop, documents, settings, and even a password to keep private things private. But in Vista, user accounts also help your PC protect itself from...well, you.  

User Account Control (UAC) is the name of the system that displays the “Windows needs your permission to continue” message whenever you try to make a change to your system. On one hand, having to watch the screen go black while you wait for the UAC prompt to appear every time you open Device Manager can be tremendously annoying. On the other hand, the system  is designed to let you know whenever a change is being made to your system, which (in theory) makes it harder for spyware and viruses to do their dirty work.

Otherwise, User Accounts are the primary means of protecting your data, even if you’re the only person who uses your PC. The user accounts system allows you to encrypt your data, so it can’t be read by someone who doesn’t know your password, and it makes it possible to securely share your files with those on your network who do. And it means you can share your PC with your kids without having to stare at their “Astronaut on a Surfboard” desktop wallpaper.

There are actually three different User Accounts dialogs in Windows Vista, each with a completely different design and “intended audience,” so to speak. The problem is that each tool has a few options not found in the other, so no single window can be used exclusively to handle all your tasks.

User Accounts The primary user accounts interface, found at Control Panel ➝ User Accounts and shown in the Figure, is the one that most users see. It’s large, friendly, and unfortunately, somewhat cumbersome.

Some additional settings also can be changed only with the alternate User Accounts window, which, incidentally, is identical to the sole User Accounts tool in Windows 2000. To open the old-style User Accounts dialog, open the Start menu, type control userpasswords2 in the Search box, and click OK. 

Local Users and Groups

The third way to manage user accounts in Windows is to use the Local Users and Groups policy editor, shown in the second figure; open the Start menu, type lusrmgr.msc in the Search box, and press Enter. The Local Users and Groups window (LUaG) is actually a Microsoft Management Console (mmc.exe) snap-in, like the Disk Management utility and the Windows Firewall with Advanced Security window, and therefore can be accessed remotely if necessary.

Now, How to Control User Account Control?? we will see it later!