Windows 2012 - how to disable "run as administrator" requirement

So you've just installed Windows 2012..

The first thing you do is turn off UAC just like in Windows 2008 to stop it prompting you every time java wants to update.  Great! no more popups that you're just going to click ok to every time.

Then you remember you need to edit the hosts file, but what's this? You can't save it?  What's going on?

The answer is you need to edit it with notepad that's been "run as administrator".  But that's going to be a hassle isn't it, so how do you disable this and go back to Windows 2008 behaviour?

The answer is to edit a registry key which controls the EnableLUA setting:
HKLM:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System\EnableLUA
Default value Windows 2008 = 0
Default value Windows 2012 = 1

You can do it via regedit or run the powershell below, in a powershell prompt that of course has been run as administrator:

Set-ItemProperty -Path "HKLM:\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System" -Name "EnableLUA" -Value "0"

The server needs to be rebooted which you can do from powershell too:

shutdown -r -t 0

Hey presto, no more prompts.

Credit to this post for the solution.