Account Permissions Problem?

I'm a new Vista user and I'm trying to get used to it.

I fear I might have hosed something. I must have installed something bad and
was getting BSODs early in the boot process. I had to do a system restore to
yesterday and the BSODs appear to be gone.

I thought (not 100% sure) that previously when I was running as a standard
user, then when I went into regedit, I got a couple of UAC popups and I was
able to edit the registry (say the HKLM/Run key).

Now, as a standard user, I open regedit, it just opens up immediately and
I'm unable to edit keys in HKLM.

Also, for example, I open the java control panel icon and I can't edit the
automatically check for update field (because it's in the registry, I
guess).

Another thing is if I go into services, it just goes right in instead of
bringing up UAC, but I'm not able to edit any services at all.

But, on the other hand, if I go into say users and try to add a user, I do
get the UAC popup, enter the admin pw and I have rights to add a user.
Also, I just tried clicking the java install and it asks me for an admin pw,
so I guess if I continued with the install, it'd allow the proper registry
entries to be entered? So I know UAC is still there operating.

If I change myself to an admin, I can go into regedit and services and make
full changes.

Did I screw up something somewhere? Is it even supposed to invoke UAC when
a standard user opens regedit or tries to change a service, I'm not even
positive it worked that way before my system restore? Any way to fix this?

Also, I tried adding another standard user and it does operate the same was
as me.

Thanks!