Win 7 SP1 was peak desktop computing for sure. Actual desktop-first design without security kindergarten cancer that is every windows OS after.
7 disabled a lot of the security prompts for usability. It didn't remove them, it actually just automatically approved them. These days, most software doesn't need admin privileges anymore. You could always turn off all of the prompts if you wanted to, I think there were 4 levels of prompt severity?