If your Windows chops extend in any capacity beyond novice, you've no doubt encountered the ever-cryptic Windows Registry, DLL files, User Account Control and other tools with seemingly dark and mysterious powers. Here, we'll explain some of Windows' most confusing features, so you know exactly what's happening when you go to edit them.

If you've been keeping up with Windows 7 news, you know one of the selling points is a less annoying UAC system—so the 7 Tutorials blog set out to illustrate what was actually changed.

There's no feature of Windows Vista more loathed than the User Account Control (UAC) security feature that pops up every time you try to do anything. Here's how to permanently disable it (and possibly regain your sanity in the process).

A brief addendum to my recent list of things that should be fixed in the next Outlook: the error message above. While this appears to suggest that there's no way of removing a buggy Outlook add-in short of hacking the registry, the actual solution is far simpler: run Outlook as Administrator and the message disappears. How hard would it be to display 'You need Administrator privileges to change this setting' instead? (OK, I know, it would remind everyone that being logged in as administrator is actually meaningless under Vista, but that would still be preferable. And I've now remembered the same message also appears elsewhere in Office, so it's ripe for removal.)

Windows Vista only: Free utility Norton User Account Control replaces Vista's default UAC with a more user-friendly and more secure UAC. The administrator password-prompting User Account Control quickly annoyed most Windows users when they made the upgrade to Vista—so much so that many of you preferdisabling it altogether to actually taking advantage of the enhanced security. Microsoft has responded, saying UAC will be less maddening in Windows 7, but that's not of much help for current Vista users. Norton UAC promises less duplicate UAC alerts, a simple Don't ask me again option, and more details so you have a better understanding of what's actually causing the UAC prompt. How novel! After you install it, Norton UAC automatically replaces the default UAC whenever a UAC prompt would normally appear. Norton UAC is a free beta download, requires Windows Vista.

Norton User Account Control