User Account Control Problem

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I’m running 8.1 on a laptop and have two accounts, Admin and User. There are many times when, using my regular user account, I need to do something that requires admin credentials. When this happens, the appropriate dlg box opens and asks for either SmartCard authentication (I don’t have a SmartCard) or my admin password. So I enter my admin password and…..NOTHING!

This wasn’t a problem in Vista and earlier Windows OS versions. How do I fix it in 8.1?

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Do you get the same thing when you right-click a shortcut and choose Run as Administrator?

Before you wonder "Am I doing things right," ask "Am I doing the right things?"

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Yes. Although instead of a shortcut, I just tried Run As Administrator after right-clicking REGEDT32.EXE.

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Does running regedit in the Start, Search box [or Start, Run box if you have it showing] work? My Win7 works with regedit but doesn’t like regedit32, says it can’t find it. Searching in the C:Windows Folder and the whole C: drive doesn’t find regedit32.exe. Same results in my Win8.1 Pro.

Before you wonder "Am I doing things right," ask "Am I doing the right things?"

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Yes it does, but that’s not the point here and I don’t want this thread hijacked. That said, both REGEDIT and its counterpart are displayed exactly the same, so I’m left wondering if MS retired the former and just copied REGEDIT.EXE to REGEDT32.EXE.

(The EXE is located in the SYSTEM32 subfolder.)

Please reread the original question, as this is a matter of running anything from my user account while (successfully) submitting admin credentials.

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Can you log in as Administrator and run things?

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Yes, but that is not the point.

With earlier Windows, it was very easy to run whatever while logged on as user, so long as I was able to provide admin credentials. Win 8.1 provides a dialog box to do just that, but then refuses to cooperate when I provide those credentials. Herein is the crux of the matter, and having to repeatedly switch, then log in with my admin account is a nuisance I’m trying to eliminate.

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Here’s the answer. It comes from F. Michael Covington, PhD, the long-serving Windows OS course writer and instructor for Learning Tree International (and with whom I co-taught a Windows 95 course as I was breaking into the ranks at LTree years ago). His latest course is Windows 8/8.1: A Comprehensive Hands-On Introduction. Mike states:

Windows 8.1 has many restrictions placed on the built-in admin account (rid 500). Try creating another account and placing it into the admins group. Then try using the new creds when prompted.

So…. I logged in using my built-in admin account, then created a new user account. CAREFUL! You have to click [Next] on the opening dialog box so as NOT to set up this account using an M$ e-mail login. You can then set it up using Local Account (in M$ parlance). OK, great…. but now what? Now you have to find the new account you just created and edit it to have admin credentials—simple, but easy to miss this all-important step.

You can then log out of your primary admin account, log in with your everyday user account credentials and test things out. I did this be reinstalling a small utility and, when prompted, simply selected the admin account I had just created (it was already selected for me), furnished its password and voila!

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Thanks CaptNemo, I am having the same problem. I had just made my local account an admin account. Will see if this is the account shown the next time I get the “smart card” question, and if that lets me do such as register the computer!

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