I know that it's possible to remove the 'Shortcut arrow' icon overlay in Windows Vista using the FrameworkX Utility (http://www.howtogeek.com/howto.....ows-vista/) but I am interested in removing or altering the Administrative Security Shield icon overlay.

In case I've not described it properly, I am talking about the overbearing multi-colour shield image that appears over the icon of any application that requires administrative access to run properly. As a little background, I have a few applications on my desktop that need administrative access to run properly. I made some nice new icons for them using the GIMP, but the security shield is rather obtrusive, and tends to domineer my icons. I don't mind the UAC prompts (in fact I prefer having them), but the icon itself is driving me crazy! ;)

I know that one of the Microangelo tools is able to do this, but are there any freeware tools that provide the same feature? Is there a registry hack that will also do the same? Thanks in advance for any help; I appreciate it. :)

I used Process Monitor and the dll that program updates for the shortcut icon. I then looked at the same file in IconsExtract and found a shield icon.
The dll is C:\Windows\System32\imageres.dll
So a program that could replace that shield icon with a blank one in that dll might work.
There could be a registry entry for it too. Though I have no idea what.
Microsoft makes it hard to customize things like this in Windows for UI Constancy.

I found a round-about solution to this problem, without having to modify any DLL files. It's also cool, because it lets you pick and choose which icons you want un-shielded. The major drawback is that it takes a little more time to set up each icon, and you'll need to download a power-tool.

You'll need to download the Script Powertools from Microsoft at http://technet.microsoft.com/e.....62321.aspx which contains a cool Command Line application called 'elevate' (just right-click and 'install' the 'elevatecommand.inf' file). I made a simple batch file, like this:

@echo off
C:
cd "C:\Program Files (x86)\Application\"
elevate Application.exe

Now, just point your shortcut to that batch file, and make sure that the 'Run as Administrator' option isn't ticked. For cleanliness' sake, you might like to also make sure that the application runs minimized, which should keep the Command Prompt window out the way, and the real application or game should run properly (be it windowed or full-screen).