Do You UAC?


Do You UAC?  

462 members have voted

  1. 1. Do You UAC?

    • Yes, iam really enjoy been annoyed
      175
    • No, iam fed up
      273
    • Duno what UAC is arsing about
      14


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On a server PC which isnt going to have lots of stuff done on it like installing apps and stuff once its all set up then I think it'll be ok (but I'll still probably disable it because it annoys me all the time anyway) For my home desktop pc and laptop I have disabled it becuase it seriously annoys the hell outa me.

All of the above are things I do on a regular basis so I get the annoying UAC thing a lot!

Well either you're lying or you're crazy, because no one needs to be changing system settings and installing applications every single day of the year (unless they're tech support, and even then I can't see anyone finding UAC particularly annoying).

There would be very few people on these forums that would qualify as more of a power user than I, and I have absolutely no problems with UAC. Just today I installed 2 Vista PC's (one desktop, one Laptop) with UAC protecting me every step of the way and it didn't annoy me one bit, because now that it's done, I won't have to deal with UAC prompts very often.

I can see that there are several little things that have a tendancy to annoy (folder creation in privledge restricted ares for one), but when taken as a whole:

  • UAC prompts don't appear that often once you
  • Elevation is made easier on Admin accounts than on other OS's, further reducing the annoyance on system admins
  • It's introduction to Windows now allows many poorly designed applications to function at a standard user level through file/registry virtualization
  • It's introduction to Windows now allows many common tasks (time zone changes, power settings) to be controlled by standard users
  • UAC prevents exploitable bugs in applications from bringing down the whole system by locking down system critical folders
  • UAC prevents malicious applications automatically runnning with admin privileges

To me at least, the benefits clearly drastically outway the annoyance of having to click one extra button.

Edit: This is not to say that other security "features" in Windows don't annoy me. The neverending warnings from IE take it way to far.

Edited by kl33per
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Well I suppose we're a lot of computer-excited people here, Net Admin here as well, so we all have (in some different ways) got our copy of Vista running... And for me, same thing, UAC was the first thing I turned off when I logged on on a new fresh install of Vista. For the usual user, maybe, but not for me! And even the simple user will get bored, it's appearing constatntly, at each change of settings... Please Kill UAC.

I'm currently looking for a way to prevent the Windows Security Alerts to appear in the taskbar and, at each reboot, to remind me that "My computer could be at risk" :D Please, we know what we're doing, for the most of us... ;)

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Most of you are the very same people that have complained out your asses in the past that Microsoft needs to beef up the security in Windows and then turn right around and disable it and will be the very same ones who complain when something screws up your systems.

Install your legacy apps to your user folder and most of the UAC nags will go away.

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Well I suppose we're a lot of computer-excited people here, Net Admin here as well, so we all have (in some different ways) got our copy of Vista running... And for me, same thing, UAC was the first thing I turned off when I logged on on a new fresh install of Vista. For the usual user, maybe, but not for me! And even the simple user will get bored, it's appearing constatntly, at each change of settings... Please Kill UAC.

I'm currently looking for a way to prevent the Windows Security Alerts to appear in the taskbar and, at each reboot, to remind me that "My computer could be at risk" :D Please, we know what we're doing, for the most of us... ;)

Go to Security Center and on the left side you will something like to not notify you about risks bla bla....i can't look at now since i disabled security center.

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I dun use it because I know what I'm doing
People who think that are missing the point.

I "know what I'm doing" in Linux, yet I run my OS and apps as unpriveleged - only elevating what is needed. The purpose of UAC (or su/sudo in *nix) is to prevent malware (or malicious/ignorant users) from having unnecessary elevated priveleges.

People with UAC off will be automatically hit with malware in the future because they didn't use it. With UAC, you will at least be warned, putting in a safety catch.

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I'm annoyed of this, and I'm scarred for people that don't know anything in PCs. My Father panic if he see "Your computer may be at risk, no anti-virus is found" but there where an Antivirus, he has paranoid at the though that it could be been disabled...

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I'm annoyed of this, and I'm scarred for people that don't know anything in PCs. My Father panic if he see "Your computer may be at risk, no anti-virus is found" but there where an Antivirus, he has paranoid at the though that it could be been disabled...

Then fix it and educate him :p You could always get him an anti-virus that is recognized by the Security centre. And educate him on UAC if he ever uses Vista, tell him if you're opening a program at the same time, chances are that it's for the program and he's not being hacked.

That's the problem with even so called "power users"... they say that they'll disable a feature because they're experienced when they don't even know what sort of problems, or to the extent of the problems, the feature could prevent.

I think we need a sticky in the Vista section stating reasons why using UAC is a good thing, and the scenarios that it can save you from.

Some people are saying that they'd like a memory for which UAC prompts to do.... but isn't that the same as automatially giving rights to that feature to any virus/trojan/hacker who accesses your system? And please if you're going to disable security desktop (bad idea), at least reenable the requirement of a password each prompt.

Edited by Evolution
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The biggest flaw of Uac is that it doesn't differ between actions that you performed?(where?it's?a?pain?in?the?a$$) and actions that applications perform without your doing (where it is actually needed).

If they would fix it so that it only comes up when needed, i.e. when apps perform operations that were not initiated by you, and not gets in your way all the time when performing?simple routine tasks, annoying the hell out of you, then probably a lot more people would use it.

In its present state, it's just a half-assed attempt at better security which won't do any good for a lot of people because they either are so unnerved by it that they automatically click OK on any dialogs without reading them or turn it right off because it interferes too much with their everyday work.

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People who think that are missing the point.

I "know what I'm doing" in Linux, yet I run my OS and apps as unpriveleged - only elevating what is needed. The purpose of UAC (or su/sudo in *nix) is to prevent malware (or malicious/ignorant users) from having unnecessary elevated priveleges.

People with UAC off will be automatically hit with malware in the future because they didn't use it. With UAC, you will at least be warned, putting in a safety catch.

Yeah, and like I said above, it's actually about more than that. The real point (on ANY OS) isn't that you'll be prompted when a virus or malware is attempting to affect your system. In that case, many people would just hit "continue" like they do to all the IE prompts. Yeah, if you download an app from an untrusted source and it asks for elevation, you should obviously say no. But that's not, in my mind, the primary security benefit of UAC.

The real use is that your applications will run without admin privileges. Why is that good? Because the next time IE, Firefox, Messenger, (or any other app) is exploited, it won't be able to do any serious damage and in many cases will fail completely. You won't be prompted, it will just fail, because the application being hijacked by the buffer overrun or whatever will already be running with reduced privileges.

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The biggest flaw of Uac is that it doesn't differ between actions that you performed (where it's a pain in the a$$) and actions that applications perform without your doing (where it is actually needed).

If they would fix it so that it only comes up when needed, i.e. when apps perform operations that were not initiated by you, and not gets in your way all the time when performing simple routine tasks, annoying the hell out of you, then probably a lot more people would use it.

In its present state, it's just a half-assed attempt at better security which won't do any good for a lot of people because they either are so unnerved by it that they automatically click OK on any dialogs without reading them or turn it right off because it interferes too much with their everyday work.

And what about a malicious program that mimics the user?

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UAC does not annoy me, for the simple fact that I know that its there to make my computer more secure. Whats really annoying is all these people that say they are going to turn it off because they think its "annoying" or "pointless". These same people are the ones that will come crying back to these forums when some piece of malware has gotten admin privledges and hijacked their computer.

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I use my PC a lot, and tried UAC for a week. It already annoyed me a bit in the beta's, but I thought let's give the RTM a fair chance. After a week of many UAC popups I turned it off. Sometimes deleting a file from e.g. your Desktop gets you 3 popups, it drove me insane.

I feel secure enough with Windows OneCare and a bit of common sense. I backup my documents well.

I'd rather use my system, instead of negotiating with it.

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UAC has it's place but unfortunately it's a bit overkill. Sure, it'll give you a warning when you install a bit of malware, but lets be honest here, how is average joe PC user going to know? He's just going to see the same prompt he sees almost every day and click it without thinking. I mean how many of us go to install programs and just skip through the licence part? Answer - 99% of us. The UAC button is just another button to click.

On the other hand, those of us who actually know what we're donig enough to be able to understand what a UAC prompt really means are unlikely to be silly enough to install malware anyway.

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I use my PC a lot, and tried UAC for a week. It already annoyed me a bit in the beta's, but I thought let's give the RTM a fair chance. After a week of many UAC popups I turned it off. Sometimes deleting a file from e.g. your Desktop gets you 3 popups, it drove me insane.

I feel secure enough with Windows OneCare and a bit of common sense. I backup my documents well.

I'd rather use my system, instead of negotiating with it.

Could you give an example of the desktop problem.... I'm pretty sure you'll only recieve one (the recycle bin confirmation, which can be turned off) since it's within the User folder set.

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UAC has it's place but unfortunately it's a bit overkill. Sure, it'll give you a warning when you install a bit of malware, but lets be honest here, how is average joe PC user going to know? He's just going to see the same prompt he sees almost every day and click it without thinking. I mean how many of us go to install programs and just skip through the licence part? Answer - 99% of us. The UAC button is just another button to click.

On the other hand, those of us who actually know what we're donig enough to be able to understand what a UAC prompt really means are unlikely to be silly enough to install malware anyway.

I've answered this already twice in this thread. That's not the point of UAC. When UAC does its primary job, the "joe user" you're talking about will NEVER see a prompt. The attack will just fail.

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How will it "just fail"? How can windows tell if a program trying to do something is actually a piece of malware and not an installer or something? (I'm not arguing your point, I am actually curious about this)

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How will it "just fail"? How can windows tell if a program trying to do something is actually a piece of malware and not an installer or something? (I'm not arguing your point, I am actually curious about this)

It's simple really.

1) Start your computer with UAC on.

2) Open your favorite web browser.

3) Unknowingly browse to a web site that exploits a buffer overrun in your web browser, causing malicious code to run inside the browser's process.

4) Malicious code attempts to access system files, and fails because your browser is running with limited privileges.

That is how UAC makes you more secure, my friend.

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Unfortunately, I had to disable it. I have MANY MANY files (200GB+) that were used by my old XP installation, and UAC refuses to allow write access to any of them unless I run apps as administrator. I have tried taking ownership, checking the access boxes, etc and still no dice. I would LOVE to be able to use UAC... but until this issue is resolved I can't.

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Then fix it and educate him :p You could always get him an anti-virus that is recognized by the Security centre. And educate him on UAC if he ever uses Vista, tell him if you're opening a program at the same time, chances are that it's for the program and he's not being hacked.
It was already hard to show him was what a start menu on the phone... :pinch:

Last time he called me because he saw a popup saying that Avast got updated (I though that I had resolved the anti-virus question, *sigh*)

I know a guy that don't even click on the popup that says that systray icons has been hidden when I re-installed his Windows.

He as read it, but as hesitated like hell to click the X or not...

No seriously, UAC will scare noobs. And I'm thankful, I left the troubleshooting scene so I don't do tech support anymore.

That's the problem with even so called "power users"... they say that they'll disable a feature because they're experienced when they don't even know what sort of problems, or to the extent of the problems, the feature could prevent.
I KNOW what it prevent, I KNOW that it's made to avoid problems, but I also know how mush my PC will have a big problem if I get 10 popups to do something simple one day that I have really bad mood.

If you like that mush UAC, disable your pop-up blocker of your browser, this also will prevent sites from being paid sites or to use more harmful way to show ads.

For me, both are popups, good or not, it annoy me.

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The first time I used vista (around build 5308), I found UAC to be extremely annoying, but it was changed several times, and worked much better on the post Beta 2 builds. I always leave UAC on, because I prefer to keep my computer secured. a popup or two isn't really that bad, seeing I only see it every now and then.

However, for some applications, I have to run elevated because those applications can't function due to UAC's security policy. My only qualm against Secure Desktop is that whenever I run Final Fantasy XI, and something triggers secure desktop and it ends up killing the game the game, but this is extremely rare.

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I use it and run as a Standard User so I enter my password. Thinking about being even more hard core and turning on the option that requires you to press Ctrl+Alt+Delete -before- doing a password entry so you know you're not entering it in to any fake dialog boxes. ;)

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