You can run a command prompt or any application as an administrator by right-clicking it and then clicking Run As Administrator. If you always run an app as an administrator, you can usually change a setting to automatically elevate privileges.

You have to follow different steps to always run the command prompt as an administrator:

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Vista tells you it needs a TPM for BitLocker, but it lies. Follow these steps to enable BitLocker without a TPM:

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BitLocker is a Windows Vista security feature that encrypts an entire hard disk (technically, a volume) to protect your data if someone steals your entire computer. If you see, “The drive configuration is unsuitable for BitLocker Drive Encryption. To use BitLocker, please re-partition your hard drive according to the BitLocker requirements.”, it means you need two partitions (a partition is a smaller section of your hard disk). As shown in the figure above, BitLocker needs a small, 1.5GB “active” partition to store the Windows Boot Manager, which basically decrypts your BitLocker-protected partition so Windows can start. The main partition, your C: drive, is the BitLocker encrypted one with your personal files, the paging file, and everything that needs to be encrypted.

Instructions after the jump.

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BitLocker is a Windows Vista security feature that encrypts an entire hard disk (technically, a volume) to protect your data if someone steals your entire computer. Unfortunately, in the event of disk corruption, it can make your computer more difficult to fix and might prevent you from recovering your data–so it’s really important to do nightly backups if you enable BitLocker. Because of this, it’s not right for most people; you only need it if the privacy of your data is really important.

More after the jump

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User Account Control (UAC) prompts you before an application makes an important change to your computer that requires administrative privileges. By default, the UAC prompt appears on the “secure desktop”, which freezes and darkens your screen. By freezing your screen, secure desktop makes it more difficult for another application to impersonate Windows and trick you into typing your administrator password into a fake UAC prompt.

The flashing screen is distracting, and slows things down a bit. To turn off the flashing without completely disabling UAC, follow these steps (after the jump):

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Vista includes Windows Defender, which is antispyware software. Unfortunately, Windows Defender doesn’t protect you from viruses, worms, and Trojan horses, which are the nastiest types of malicious software. They’re the ones that cause all the damage and can really make your computer unusable.

Antivirus software designed for Windows XP won’t work on Windows Vista. Currently, all the antivirus companies (including Microsoft OneCare) are updating their software to run on Vista, and most of them have beta versions available. For more information about antivirus software, check CNet.

Some applications won’t run on Windows Vista because they were designed for earlier versions of Windows. Most of the time, the problem is caused by UAC. You have three choices to work around this:

• Disable UAC.
• Run the application as an administrator each time you open it.
• Mark the application to always run as an administrator.

To mark an application so that UAC automatically prompts you to elevate privileges, follow these steps (after the jump):

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