It's time to enable UAC.

[freak_power]

After one year software and hardware companies learned how to write software/drivers with UAC in mind, so UAC can go 'online' and nothing will get broken....

Happy computing...

[Brandon Live Veteran]

Err, nothing ever got broken by enabling UAC. Only by disabling it.

[Slimy]

After one year software and hardware companies learned how to write software/drivers with UAC in mind, so UAC can go 'online' and nothing will get broken....

Happy computing...

Say what? What makes today different from yesterday or tomorrow? All programs that didn't consider UAC have been rewritten have they?

:laugh:

[Mordkanin]

Err, nothing ever got broken by enabling UAC. Only by disabling it.

Case in point: Adobe's installers for the first several months of Vista.

But yeah, I can't think of a single thing that UAC was capable of 'breaking' that couldn't be resolved with the little "Always run this as an Admin" checkbox.

But I guess it has the freak_power seal of approval now, so that means....?

[scuderiaconchiglia]

Err, nothing ever got broken by enabling UAC. Only by disabling it.

Nothing ever got broken, that's true. But something might be "lost". Turning it on now will invoke the virtualization of reading and writing files in the C:\Program Files directory for an application. And anything saved to a given application's program file directory will now appear as if it has disappeared.

For example if you have been playing some game with UAC turned off, that game was free to save configuration info or even "saved games" in its own program files directory. If you turn on UAC, when the application tries to go to its own program files directory to find this data, it will be redirected via UAC's virtualization to the "C:\ProgramData" directory instead and it won't find what it is looking for. The data is not gone, just misplaced.

This is the same warning given to folks who are thinking about doing away with UAC.

Gary

[Mordkanin]

Nothing ever got broken, that's true. But something might be "lost". Turning it on now will invoke the virtualization of reading and writing files in the C:\Program Files directory for an application. And anything saved to a given application's program file directory will now appear as if it has disappeared.

For example if you have been playing some game with UAC turned off, that game was free to save configuration info or even "saved games" in its own program files directory. If you turn on UAC, when the application tries to go to its own program files directory to find this data, it will be redirected via UAC's virtualization to the "C:\ProgramData" directory instead and it won't find what it is looking for. The data is not gone, just misplaced.

This is the same warning given to folks who are thinking about doing away with UAC.

Gary

I'm not sure if works in that direction. It is true that turning off UAC will cause anything in the virtual store to be lost as without virtualization, the app will no longer ever see the virtual store, but if the program attempts to access the program files directory now that you've turned it back on, won't it first go to the program files directory before it drops it in the virtual store?

If not, why doesn't it?

[scuderiaconchiglia]

I'm not sure if works in that direction. It is true that turning off UAC will cause anything in the virtual store to be lost as without virtualization, the app will no longer ever see the virtual store, but if the program attempts to access the program files directory now that you've turned it back on, won't it first go to the program files directory before it drops it in the virtual store?

If not, why doesn't it?

My "understanding" is that it does not. But I have not turned it off and back on to find out. Mine is on and stays that way! <big ol' grin> The way I believe it works is that even if it did attempt to go to the program files directory, the virtualization of UAC will force it to the ProgramData directory. I don't think the app has the ability to see the program files directory with UAC on.

Gary

[Janitor]

Most pointless thread evar.

[Jason S. Global Moderator]

this thread = :laugh:

thanks for the go ahead! buuut UAC is still teh ghey.

[forster]

UAC is always the first thing I turn off on Vista installs.

Im more than able to manage my own systems, havent had a virus or rogue program in years, and Ive only once lost files that UAC couldnt of prevented, so as I see it, Id rather lose a bit of security for the ability to not have to deal with all. Those. ****ing. Boxes. That. Make. You. Confirm. and stop the flow of trying to get work done, or having fun on a computer.

Im not saying UAC wasnt a good idea, Im sure it has its uses, but I cant ****ing stand it.

[ObiWanToby]

I've never disabled UAC....

[AltecXP]

freak_power never understood that HE doesn't understand UAC.

[Darrian]

I will never enable UAC, but thanks for your permission.

[NEVER85]

UAC is always the first thing I turn off on Vista installs.

Im more than able to manage my own systems, havent had a virus or rogue program in years, and Ive only once lost files that UAC couldnt of prevented, so as I see it, Id rather lose a bit of security for the ability to not have to deal with all. Those. ****ing. Boxes. That. Make. You. Confirm. and stop the flow of trying to get work done, or having fun on a computer.

Im not saying UAC wasnt a good idea, Im sure it has its uses, but I cant ****ing stand it.

Lol. I laugh at you anti-UAC crowd. Virtually everything you just said was a pile of crap. UAC is only annoying when you're installing all your programs after a format. In your average day to day use, UAC rarely, if ever, pops up. Do you constantly write to Program Files or the Windows folder? I don't see why you would, as that's the only time you'd really see UAC, and if for some reason you do need to do something on the computer that requires elevated privileges on a daily basis, I doubt your time's really that important that you can't afford to take the extra half-second to click "Allow".

[forster]

Lol. I laugh at you anti-UAC crowd. Virtually everything you just said was a pile of crap. UAC is only annoying when you're installing all your programs after a format. In your average day to day use, UAC rarely, if ever, pops up. Do you constantly write to Program Files or the Windows folder? I don't see why you would, as that's the only time you'd really see UAC, and if for some reason you do need to do something on the computer that requires elevated privileges on a daily basis, I doubt your time's really that important that you can't afford to take the extra half-second to click "Allow".

The 'allow or deny' rubbish is pointless for me, so I disable it. I run a lot of servers from my machines, MySQL, apache, a lot of C++ programming, I regularly install and remove programs to test different builds of different things.

Yes, UAC annoys me, if you find that funny you really need to get out more.

[Darrian]

nVidia releases new drivers all the time. Neowin's own front page is full of new software to try out. And certainly files are deleted frequently, I shouldn't have to tell my computer yes, I'm really, really sure I want to get rid of that. UAC was obviously written for people who would be better off owning a Mac.

[Jason S. Global Moderator]

it's not that we're lazy majindark... it's that we cant make our own decisions w/o having this box pop up on the screen. it's like an uptight father watching over his teenage daughter.

[forster]

As much as that Calgary guy annoys me, I have to defend your slight against Macs!

There's no UAC on OSX, I dont know why you are comparing the two.

Edited December 12, 2007 by forster

[»X«]

After one year software and hardware companies learned how to write software/drivers with UAC in mind, so UAC can go 'online' and nothing will get broken....

Happy computing...

Horrah! And there was great rejoicing!

[Ironman273]

As much as that Calgary guy annoys me, I have to defend your slight against Macs!

There's no UAC on OSX, I dont know why you are comparing the two.

Of course there is. You just don't see it as often because Mac programs have been written to take it into account for years now. Years from now people will not notice Vista's UAC the same way you didn't notice Apple's. Both Linux and Mac don't make you Administrator and need password input to install/change something critical. Same thing with Vista, except XP and earlier programs assumed the user had Admin rights and were written that way, so UAC comes on to double check. Most of those programs don't need Admin rights, but they're just used to being written that way.

[Darrian]

As much as that Calgary guy annoys me, I have to defend your slight against Macs!

There's no UAC on OSX, I dont know why you are comparing the two.

I'm not; UAC is written to protect people from screwing up their systems. MacOS is a simpler OS for the common idiot. It doesn't need UAC. Not that I dislike it, I think it's elegant and simple and a joy to use, but nobody writes much software for it compared to Windows, which I reckon is probably the biggest reason MS has managed to dominate the market and Apple is getting dowright violent in their ads trying to win back their user base. People who don't generally do more than browse the net and check their email and occasionally write a school paper don't need to be using Vista.

[forster]

I'm not; UAC is written to protect people from screwing up their systems. MacOS is a simpler OS for the common idiot. It doesn't need UAC. Not that I dislike it, I think it's elegant and simple and a joy to use, but nobody writes much software for it compared to Windows, which I reckon is probably the biggest reason MS has managed to dominate the market and Apple is getting dowright violent in their ads trying to win back their user base. People who don't generally do more than browse the net and check their email and occasionally write a school paper don't need to be using Vista.

I use a Mac, as do a lot of members here. Thanks for calling us all idiots. You'll go far on this site with that attitude.

[Darrian]

I didn't say all Mac users were idiots, but since that's how you chose to read it, you're very welcome. If you use a Mac, why are you even in a UAC thread? I certainly don't give a damn about going "far," look at my join date and post count.

Clarification for everybody else who isn't an idiot: I should have said that MacOS was designed to be more intuitive and idiot-proof.

[Brandon Live Veteran]

I'm not; UAC is written to protect people from screwing up their systems. MacOS is a simpler OS for the common idiot. It doesn't need UAC. Not that I dislike it, I think it's elegant and simple and a joy to use, but nobody writes much software for it compared to Windows, which I reckon is probably the biggest reason MS has managed to dominate the market and Apple is getting dowright violent in their ads trying to win back their user base. People who don't generally do more than browse the net and check their email and occasionally write a school paper don't need to be using Vista.

Umm, the Mac does have UAC. Well, an equivalent mechanism anyway. What it lacks is the simplicity of the Consent prompt (Continue / Cancel) and instead always requires you to type your password.

The Vista model allows either, but defaults to Consent (versus Credentials) for useability reasons. The same security purpose is served, as applications that don't require (and get approved for) admin rights won't have them, and won't be able to mess up your system if exploited.

Turning off UAC is like connecting to the internet without a firewall. Yeah, you can do it. But why would you, given the option?

My "understanding" is that it does not. But I have not turned it off and back on to find out. Mine is on and stays that way! <big ol' grin> The way I believe it works is that even if it did attempt to go to the program files directory, the virtualization of UAC will force it to the ProgramData directory.

Gary

It won't go to ProgramData because that is the All Users profile directory (and still admin-only). It will redirect to your AppData folder for writes, though. That's where the app should be writing in the first place.

I don't think the app has the ability to see the program files directory with UAC on.

It can see it, and read files from it. It just can't write to them.

In your scenario, I don't think anything is actually broken. The app will first read the file from the Program Files directory. Then when it tries to write, the write will fail and be virtualized to the VirtualStore in AppData. From then on, subsequent reads will come from the virtual store.

[Darrian]

So, then, XP had UAC? I don't seem to recall that, and my comptuter was always in perfect working order. It's called intelligence. Don't install shady software.

People who have decent routers could probably get away with no software firewall and gain some performance. Most of us are not Microsoft and don't have to worry about daily hack attacks. However, I don't see the comparison. Firewalls are obviously useful and have a legitimate purpose other than annoying the hell out its users.