Vista UAC Triggers

Ed Bott responded to a reader's question about UAC Account triggers with a quote from his recently published book, Windows Vista Inside Out. The question came from Ed's earlier post, which I had been planning on pointing out anyway. So, while you're at it, read the articles and the comments in both of Ed's articles, linked below. Great stuff, Ed!

UAC Triggers:

The types of actions that require elevation to administrator status (and therefore display a UAC elevation prompt) include those that make changes to system-wide settings or to files in %SystemRoot% or %ProgramFiles%. Among the actions that require elevation:

• Installing and uninstalling applications
• Installing device drivers
• Installing ActiveX controls
• Installing Windows Updates
• Changing settings for Windows Firewall
• Changing UAC settings
• Configuring Windows Update
• Adding or removing user accounts
• Changing a user’s account type
• Configuring Parental Controls
• Running Task Scheduler
• Restoring backed-up system files
• Viewing or changing another user’s folders and files

Within Windows Vista, you can identify in advance many actions that require elevation. A shield icon next to a button or link indicates that a UAC prompt will appear.

References:

• Why you need to be discriminating with those Vista tips

• What triggers User Account Control prompts?