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Vista and 7: Easily Disable Ease of Access
August 17th, 2009Ease of Access on the login screen was always something I disabled on my Vista machines… and of course Windows 7 hasn’t added any built-in option to disable this useless and annoying feature, so I’m here to show you how. As far as I know you can’t remove the button, but you can disable it.
I call it useless and annoying because it is… it allows people to mess with YOUR computer settings even when your machine is LOCKED! The entire point of locking your machines is so people CAN’T mess with it.
All you need to do is replace 1 executable file it is:
c:\windows\system32\utilman.exe
This file is what controls the pop up when you click the Ease of Access button.
I have taken a replacement file from an older version of Ease of Access Disabler. This was a useful utility in it’s earlier versions, but the new version throws a bunch of shit-ads on your screen for their site, and if there is something I really can’t stand, it’s ads on MY computer.
So here you go…
utilman (23kb)
I recommend just renaming your current utilman.exe to utilman.exe.old
Then extract the file in that archive to the above directory.
That’s all you have to do.
Lock your computer and click the Ease of Access button. Voila! All you’ll get now is a screen that dims temporarily and says “Ease of Access has been disabled by your administrator” with out any obnoxious and shitty looking ads or url’s on the screen.
As far as I know this works on all versions of Vista and Windows 7 (32bit tested… should also work on 64bit, but haven’t confirmed).
December 6th, 2009 at 11:56 pm
Awesome, thanks for the tip. I didn’t like the ads in the newer versions either!
December 7th, 2009 at 12:31 am
I’m glad to have helped. It’s sad end-users have to fill in features left out by Microsoft, but that seems to always be the case.
December 12th, 2009 at 9:18 am
In case of “Access Denied” you have to enter the NTFS ACL of the file and provide modify rights to the Administrators – afterwards rename succeeds.
December 14th, 2009 at 7:07 am
tested on win7 enterprise and works great. 1x.
December 18th, 2009 at 10:20 pm
December 30th, 2009 at 3:26 am
Will it actually close the program that is currently running and I can’t turn off!!
December 30th, 2009 at 10:56 pm
The fuck are you talking about?
It disables the Ease of Access button on the lock screen.
Did you even read the article or are you one of those people who posts up random comments on blogs that make no fucking sense?
January 1st, 2010 at 1:49 pm
Thanks for the help Nick.
First, I’m not entirely computer illiterate but when it comes to this type of issue, I’m usually at a loss. Here’s what I’ve done to date and I still can’t get rid of the damned keyboard.
1. I’ve disabled the Tablet PC Components
2. In the Ease of Access folder under the “Use the Computer Without a Mouse or Keyboard”, I uncheck the “Use the On-Screen Keyboard” option but when I then exit the screen and go back, the box is checked again.
3. I’d like to use the “Utilman” file you’ve made available but as AG has come across above, I don’t have permission to change current file properties and I’m again at a loss with the “NTSF ACL”.
Any other advice you’d be able to provide would be a great help in dealing with Microsoft’s bullshit.
January 1st, 2010 at 2:57 pm
You will have to take ownership of the file and then give yourself full access to the file.
It’s a useful bit of knowledge anyone running an NTFS file system should be aware of.
Here is a good blog post on another site showing you how to do it:
http://www.blogsdna.com/2159/how-to-take-ownership-grant-permissions-to-access-files-folder-in-windows-7.htm
January 1st, 2010 at 5:17 pm
Thanks for the quick response Nick. Now that I’ve changed permissions, etc, I’ve renamed the original Utilman file to Utilman.exe.old and have downloaded your file. I’ve saved it to my system32 folder and ran the file successfully but the fucking keyboard still shows up whenever I load my user account. Any other thoughts?
January 1st, 2010 at 6:06 pm
Oh do you have like a touch screen or tablet or something?
I’ve seen that before, but I’m not sure what to do about it… It might be some 3rd party software? I’m not sure.
January 23rd, 2010 at 6:05 pm
Sorry for this late post but…. if you know what you’re doing you can remove that stupid “Ease of Access” button (I’m using Vista SP2) download ResHack (google it) find windows\system32\authui.dll open with ResHack go to UIFILE then 11000 and remove this and save (you may get a black screen if you did it wrong also safe mode login screen wont show up):
January 23rd, 2010 at 6:07 pm
formatting won’t work so…
if id = “atom(Accessibility)”
button
width = “38rp”
height = “28rp”
padding=”rect(0,0,0,0)”
content = “resbmp(11118,2,-1,0,0,0,1)”
accname=”resstr(11411)”
accdesc=”resstr(11411)”
borderthickness = “rect(4rp, 2rp, 4rp, 2rp)”
background = “resbmp(11123,7,-1,0,0,1,1)”
bordercolor=”gray”
borderstyle=”raised”
/
if keyfocused = “true”
button
borderthickness = “rect(4rp, 2rp, 4rp, 2rp)”
background = “resbmp(11119,7,-1,0,0,1,1)”
bordercolor=”windowtext”
borderstyle=”solid”
/
/if
if mousefocused = “true”
button
borderthickness = “rect(4rp, 2rp, 4rp, 2rp)”
background = “resbmp(11120,7,-1,0,0,1,1)”
bordercolor=”windowtext”
borderstyle=”solid”
/
/if
if keyfocused = “true” mousefocused = “true” pressed = “false”
button
borderthickness = “rect(4rp, 2rp, 4rp, 2rp)”
background = “resbmp(11121,7,-1,0,0,1,1)”
bordercolor=”windowtext”
borderstyle=”solid”
/
/if
if pressed = “true”
button
borderthickness = “rect(4rp, 2rp, 4rp, 2rp)”
background = “resbmp(11122,7,-1,0,0,1,1)”
bordercolor=”windowtext”
borderstyle=”sunken”
/
/if
/if
January 23rd, 2010 at 9:16 pm
I am actually familiar with Resource Hacker, I have been using it for years for various “hackings”.
I have checked out the file, and in Windows 7 it looks like it is actually 14000 under UIFILE, but the coding looks fairly different, so I don’t know if I want to possibly mess up the login screen since this handy utility disables it.
It’d be nice if we could find just find the bitmap resource that it is using, erase that, and be good.
I did something like that on Vista do remove the “Windows Vista Professional” logo from the bottom of the login screen.
January 24th, 2010 at 4:33 pm
Can you send me the authui from Win7 so I can take a quick peak at it and see what they changed?
January 24th, 2010 at 4:39 pm
I emailed it to your email you used on here. Good luck.
January 24th, 2010 at 6:47 pm
Either I typed my e-mail wrong or the e-mail was deleted because of the .dll. Also I forgot to ask you to also send WINDOWS\System32\en-US\authui.dll.mui? (both in a zip or 7z)
February 25th, 2010 at 9:10 am
I can not right click on my laptop…Is it associated with this ease of access thing that I can not get rid of? I went into it wondering what it was and now I can not use my right click button.
Thanks
February 27th, 2010 at 10:58 pm
As far as I know, EoA does not change mouse settings.
March 10th, 2010 at 2:42 am
thx man just tried this on my pc with windows7 Ultimate 64-bit OS, can tell you it works
cheers