Windows Vista and User Access Control. You're Not Cleared for that Citizen.

They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security

Benjamin Franklin

For some reason, User Account Control in Inventor was the absolute bane of my existence last week. I ran into it no less than three times.

I've only recently migrated to Vista myself, primarily because I was waiting on a couple of utilities to swing over to Vista. So at last, I'm on Vista. For the most part I'm happy, then I hit the U.A.C. wall. More importantly, Murphy's law hit, and I ran into several tech issues with U.A.C.

User Account Control is a utility in Windows Vista. (insert 'Psycho' theme here).

So what is User Account Control? To be honest, I'm not sure, other than the fact that it really annoys me, and can really mess up certain softwares (not just the Autodesk Software).

Generally, it makes sure that as little as possible runs as an Administrator, even if it's in a user account, but it's also overly paranoid, and the price paid for that is nag screens, and software that often misbehaves.

So what have I seen?
1) Inventor content partially disabled
2) Gotomeeting acting up when a user was allowing me to remotely operating a computer. Certain screens would disable the drive function, even if the user granted me permission.
3) Installations treating a perfectly valid CD key as incorrect.

It's tough, it's frustrating, and in a lot of ways, totally random. It seems to affect things it should have no apparent bearing on.

So now that I've ranted on it, how do I turn it off?

First, go to your Vista control panel

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Once in the Control Panel, choose User Accounts

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You'll get a second screen, click on 'User Accounts' again.


Now we've found it. Click on 'Turn User Account Control on or Off'.

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Once you hit this, you've found the mark. Uncheck the User Account Control option, uncheck it, and you're home free!



Once that's done, your Vista experience should be a little bit more pleasant.

In other news, the Sheet Metal and Interoperability Autodesk Manufacturing Academy are starting to come together at last. Time to start finalizing and getting data sets ready!