UAC not disabled even after setting EnableLUA to 0

Question

_{Thursday, August 17, 2017 2:26 PM}

I am have an issue with disabling UAC. I have a piece of software that I have to completely turn off UAC to install properly, once it is installed I re-enable UAC. I disable it in the control panel and then I set the following in the registry. HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System and change the value EnableLUA to 0.

Normally this works and you can confirm that UAC is off by trying to launch Edge and you get a message that you can't open it.

On this particular laptop the Edge opens without an issue and the my software install fails.

What I've tried so far to resolve the issue:

At first I thought maybe Dell had installed something that was blocking it but I have gone so far as to completely re-install Win 10 from scratch. Formatted the drive and installed it from a fresh download from Microsoft.

Computer Specs Dell Inspiron 15 7579 Core i7 8Gb ram This is a brand new laptop. WIN 10 Pro.

Thanks in advance 

All replies (5)

_{Thursday, August 24, 2017 12:44 PM ✅Answered}

This appears to have been a combination of things.

1) a recent windows update broke a compatibility check in the installer.  Removing the check allowed the install to complete.

2) it seems that a recent windows update changed (at least for some pc's) how disabling UAC effects metro apps. 

I think this maybe something in windows build 1703 but I have not been able to verify it yet. Both pc's that were having the issue are build 1703.

_{Friday, August 18, 2017 6:49 AM}

Hi,

“Normally this works and you can confirm that UAC is off by trying to launch Edge and you get a message that you can't open it.”

When you install other software, are there any error messages occur?

Have you disabled your antivirus software and firewall? If not, try to disable them temporarily.

Are there any error messages occur in Event Viewer(Windows Logs\Applications, System)?

After changed registry, don’t forget to restart your computer to bring it into force.

Best regards,

Joy.

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_{Friday, August 18, 2017 12:40 PM}

Hi,

I have rebooted after all changes.

The only error from the installer is that it couldn't create a directory.

I have tried with defender and the firewall off. No change.  I've also tried it with "run as Administrator"

No errors reported in the event log.

Regards

Craig

_{Thursday, August 24, 2017 10:24 AM}

Hi Craig,

"The only error from the installer is that it couldn't create a directory."

When and where the error occur? Is it available to provide the capture to us?

Please export your Event Viewer and upload the file to OneDrive, then paste the link here.

Bests,

Joy.

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_{Friday, August 25, 2017 2:04 AM}

Hi,

Thank you for your feedback.

However, I suspect the issue is not caused by Windows Update. You might set other UAC configuration in Group Policy Editor carelessly.

Normally, even if we disabled UAC, it is just not send any notification to you. But it doesn't mean you could run as administrator on every action. It run always as a standard user account by default after you disabled UAC. So if you want to install which require you elevate to administrator account.

If we want to specify the exact result, we could check event viewer to find if there are some access deny error messages occur.

No matter how, if the issue was resolved, congratulation. 

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