Since only Pro & Enterprise have the secpol.msc snapin I have been looking for a way to turn off running administrators in approval mode on Windows 8 Core edition. This is so Windows works like it did with Vista & 7 (ie. Elevation with zero restrictions.) If it is possible and anyone knows how please can they explain? Thanks...
I am fairly certain that Admin Approval Mode policy is actually set to enabled by default on Vista and 7 for anyone that is part of the Administrators User Group. The hidden built-in Administrator account does have Admin Approval Mode policy set to disabled by default on Vista and 7. I think it is the same thing on Windows 8 too, but I haven't double checked that yet. According to Microsoft, all version of Windows since Vista are configured that way by default. With that being said, Group Policies are just registry values at the end of the day. This means you can always enable/disable them manually via Regedit. I recommend consulting the Microsoft Group Policy Settings Reference to identify where in the registry this specific setting lives. I would link it, but I don't have enough posts yet. Just Google it and it should be the first result.