Vista problem as Administrator

[tellboy]

Luckily I have two identical PC's so can leave XP intact and install Vista on the other.
Trying to install programs and with Vista I keep getting messages to "Log on as Administrator" before I am able to do this or that.
There is only me on the PC . In user accounts in Control Panel I am logged on as "Administrator".
There is no option apart from changing to Standard.
Anyone else having this problem.?

[rojash]

Do you mean you are logged on as Administrator or as AN administrator. After I installed Vista, I found that there was an account called Administrator which was flagged as disabled. I just enabled it and when I boot now, I can log in as myself with a password or (crazy) as Administrator with no password.

[fo3nix]

Ultra-secure as ever.

[tellboy]

You would need to spell that out step by step Rojash.
i thought if there was only one user that was the Administrator ?

[Llamatron]

Are you sure this isn't part of Vistas new security model where nothing can happen without user authorization? It's supposed to stop unauthorized apps, ie malware, from installing themselves on the quiet.
All it does is **** off users who just want the computer to work and not be bothered by annoying popups all the bleeding time and so end up switching off the new security feature. Like I did.

[vehelpfulguy]

I think to improve security they have changed things between XP and Vista.

In XP the person who installed XP became the Adminstrator and could do everything.

This is not a good idea, letting the only user of the PC work as administrator all the time. It means people who want to install a virus or rogue program on your PC can do it as you are logged on as Adminstrator.

Under Vista when you start to use the PC you do NOT have Administrator priviliges, which is why you keep getting asked every 5 minutes if you want to do something.

Having the default user NOT looged on as Administrator is supposed to improve security.

Unix has worked like this for years. You can only do administrator things if you are logged on as ROOT. Most users log on as another ID and only log on as ROOT when they want to do some administrator type work.

I think Microsoft were trying to get Vista to work in a simlar way.

[rojash]

This is what I did, tellboy
Open Administrative Tools/Computer Management
Click on the Users Folder in the Left Window
In there you should see your own user account and possibly some others
On mine there was an account called Administrator "Built-in account for administering the computer/domain"
Right-click choose properties
It probably says Account is disabled.
Uncheck the box
Now when you start the machine you should have an opportunity to login as Administrator

An easier option is to (a) Get XP or (b) Get a Mac!

[joethecomput]

i have vista ultimate and i've made a guide on how to fix it. do you want it?