The Great UAC Debate!


UAC  

1412 members have voted

  1. 1. Do You Use UAC?

    • Yes
      477
    • Yes, On "Silent Mode"
      91
    • No (I use an Admin Account)
      496
    • No (I use a Standard Account)
      39
    • I don't use Windows Vista
      118
  2. 2. Have You Ever Been Saved By UAC?

    • Yes
      226
    • No
      932
    • I don't use Windows Vista
      106


Recommended Posts

If you get a virus, the UAC won't help you one bit, I promise you. The UAC responds to user-started tasks. It is nothing more then to make sure and ask, "Do you really want to do that?". Do you realize how many UAC prompts you would be getting if background processes had to prompt you for every system change they made?

What everyday changes do people make that make UAC prompt them? The default configuration for Windows 7 is perfect. I don't get prompted unless I'm installing something or otherwise modifying system files.

For software that was designed before Vista existed, that's a side-effect of standards enforcement and wasn't exactly intentional. UAC is generally able to detect elevation needs for legacy software, silently redirecting protected writes that don't need elevation while providing elevation prompts for those that do, but this is partly a guessing game which it doesn't always get right, resulting in cases where programs don't run correctly unless you force elevation.

For software that has been updated since the release of Vista it's either oversight or pure laziness. Oversight would be something like a program with an update checking function requiring elevation every time you launch it, in preparation for installing updates, rather than only asking for it when an update is actually found. This is partly valid (it isn't writing to protected locations without elevation), but the implementation isn't efficient (it asks for elevation when it's not actually needed). Alternately, some programs demand elevation simply because the programmers couldn't be bothered reworking it. There's nothing stopping someone taking outdated code and slapping on an elevation request, which Windows then obeys.

As more and more users leave XP there is a visible move towards programs being as silent as possible, and those that haven't kept up with this stick out more than they used to. These will eventually be updated because of this since they could lose customers based on annoyance alone if they don't do something about it.

If you get a virus, the UAC won't help you one bit, I promise you. The UAC responds to user-started tasks. It is nothing more then to make sure and ask, "Do you really want to do that?". Do you realize how many UAC prompts you would be getting if background processes had to prompt you for every system change they made?

I think you're confusing the UAC admin approval mode prompts with the Explorer warning prompts for executables from untrusted sources. UAC applies to everything no matter how it is started.

If you get a virus, the UAC won't help you one bit, I promise you. The UAC responds to user-started tasks. It is nothing more then to make sure and ask, "Do you really want to do that?". Do you realize how many UAC prompts you would be getting if background processes had to prompt you for every system change they made?

UAC helps prevent you from getting a virus, not stopping the virus from working once you are infected with one. So obviously UAC isn't going to help once you get a virus.

There are programs out there that require a prompt upon every run, at least in my experience.

And those are MOSTLY written before Vista and not updated. Most software should not need admin privs to run properly. In all honesty I don't think I have any software installed right now (100GB used by my system drive, consisting of my OS, a few games, and lots of other software) that requires a prompt for normal operation, sure some require a prompt to update the software, but only one program I have installed requires a prompt to run, FRAPS, which I have scheduled to start with my computer in admin mode with a scheduled task anyway, so I never see the prompt for it.

More and more software developers are understanding how to program without Admin mode, and also how to make their software not need admin mode (such as writing to user directories other than system directories), unless someone goes back and updates all the outdated software, those old programs are probably going to require admin mode, but that's a fault of the programs themselves, not Vista or 7.

  • 2 weeks later...

When I used Windows, I'd leave it on. It never really bothered me.

Normally +1, sometimes it get's annoying, though...

Prefer the Mac OS X style of user security here...

*bashing opened :rolleyes:* (psst: way to show maturity now and NOT start flamewars :shifty: protip!)

Glassed Silver:mac

Normally +1, sometimes it get's annoying, though...

Prefer the Mac OS X style of user security here...

*bashing opened :rolleyes:* (psst: way to show maturity now and NOT start flamewars :shifty: protip!)

Glassed Silver:mac

Haha, well, I wasn't attempting anything. I still do use Windows on a regular basis, and UAC does more good than harm. It's the same on any system, elevating to admin priviledges... To be fair, it might be alright if UAC required a password as well (but then again, I've always had my personal account as an Administrator rather than User/Limited)

Haha, well, I wasn't attempting anything. I still do use Windows on a regular basis, and UAC does more good than harm. It's the same on any system, elevating to admin priviledges... To be fair, it might be alright if UAC required a password as well (but then again, I've always had my personal account as an Administrator rather than User/Limited)

Yea, always been admin on win as well... same for os x...

I don't see the need to castrate myself if I know what I'm doing and using some other security layers. (Y)

That wasn't pointed towards you, just a general advisory to all haters haha :D

On another note: Brian, what is this now? Forum love between you and me? we are reply-spamming like hell! :D

Be my forum-######! :rofl:

Glassed Silver:mac

Yea, always been admin on win as well... same for os x...

I don't see the need to castrate myself if I know what I'm doing and using some other security layers. (Y)

That wasn't pointed towards you, just a general advisory to all haters haha :D

On another note: Brian, what is this now? Forum love between you and me? we are reply-spamming like hell! :D

Be my forum-######! :rofl:

Glassed Silver:mac

We're the only two awake.

Also. Keep it on-topic. :p

As an aside, if you try to elevate from a user/limited account, does it prompt for a password?

We're the only two awake.

Also. Keep it on-topic. :p

As an aside, if you try to elevate from a user/limited account, does it prompt for a password?

Scared of truth, much? :p

What exactly do you mean?

Like if I were logged in as a non-admin account in os x and try to change settings / sudo in terminal?

I guess yes, if it will let me definately, but I'm not that experienced with limited accounts, so ... idk for sure whether it's possible in first place.

It will always ask on admin accounts. (Y)

Glassed Silver:mac

Scared of truth, much? :p

What exactly do you mean?

Like if I were logged in as a non-admin account in os x and try to change settings / sudo in terminal?

I guess yes, if it will let me definately, but I'm not that experienced with limited accounts, so ... idk for sure whether it's possible in first place.

It will always ask on admin accounts. (Y)

Glassed Silver:mac

I meant on Windows Vista/7... If you're logged in as a User does it prompt for an administrator logon or does it just tell you that you don't have permission?

I meant on Windows Vista/7... If you're logged in as a User does it prompt for an administrator logon or does it just tell you that you don't have permission?

NO idea, I guess it will ask for a password, or at least it will work on a "execute as user -> select an admin" base I guess...

Glassed Silver:mac

NO idea, I guess it will ask for a password, or at least it will work on a "execute as user -> select an admin" base I guess...

Glassed Silver:mac

Anyone with a bit more knowledge care to chime in? I'd be interested to know.

yes, if you are a regular user it will prompt for the admin password, which was the general idea behind UAC anyway, but they left the prompt in for admins to because people are idiots :p

On OS X/Unix it'll still prompt for a password, but then again, it elevates to root account. I'm logged in as my root account (well admin) but it still asks for a password. I wonder why UAC didn't go down that path? I guess with the number of UAC prompts though it would get tired, fast.

On OS X/Unix it'll still prompt for a password, but then again, it elevates to root account. I'm logged in as my root account (well admin) but it still asks for a password. I wonder why UAC didn't go down that path? I guess with the number of UAC prompts though it would get tired, fast.

You can bet good money on that! (Y)

Glassed Silver:mac

On OS X/Unix it'll still prompt for a password, but then again, it elevates to root account. I'm logged in as my root account (well admin) but it still asks for a password. I wonder why UAC didn't go down that path? I guess with the number of UAC prompts though it would get tired, fast.

You can configure the admin approval mode prompt (the prompt given to administrator users) to always ask for credentials if you really want to, but what's the point.

When you say "Unix," I'm going to assume you only mean OS X and the handful of popular Linux distros that come preconfigured with a sudo setup since it's otherwise a meaningless umbrella term for a whole host of OSes which can't be grouped as one.

Anyway, I would speculate that the reason it's configured to prompt for your password there is for security reasons. I suspect the sudo prompts (and whatever frontends exist for them) are not secure and could easily be bypassed. Windows deals with this by prompting on a separate desktop running in a separate session so it can't be manipulated, while OS X and the Linux distros deal with it by prompting for a password. There is also a subtle technical difference in what sudo and Windows do. Sudo substitutes users, in other words runs a program as a separate user. Windows runs the program as the same user but with a different security token.

All you have to do is install to a folder other than Program Files, which is protected. No more prompts.

Uh, it's not that simple. By that logic, if I were to install CCleaner outside of PF, I'd get no prompts. Which I know would not be true since the program itself specifically asks for elevation.

With Vista, I shut it off. It's way too intrusive.

Try installing 3 gb of user created content for Morrowind / Oblivion on Vista with UAC on :)

With Windows 7, I think it's the right balance.

I've had no issue's with using UAC like features with Linux/Ubuntu or OS X, they also have the right balance.

If you get a virus, the UAC won't help you one bit, I promise you. The UAC responds to user-started tasks. It is nothing more then to make sure and ask, "Do you really want to do that?". Do you realize how many UAC prompts you would be getting if background processes had to prompt you for every system change they made?

Wrong. If you get a virus and you have UAC on your computer will be safe. The virus won't be able to touch your system files or the other accounts on your system. Your account will be attacked by the virus, but any other accounts on the machine will be safe. If you turn UAC off and you get a virus your f*****.

Wrong. If you get a virus and you have UAC on your computer will be safe. The virus won't be able to touch your system files or the other accounts on your system. Your account will be attacked by the virus, but any other accounts on the machine will be safe. If you turn UAC off and you get a virus your f*****.

UAC still doesn't remove the need for AV software though.

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Posts

    • Just pull a 4Chan and ignore the UK gov, or better troll them. It's not like they can enforce the fine across border.
    • It has NEVER been shown that all these overreaching creepy methods of surveillance have ever saved a child or prevented a terrorist attack. Not a single one. It's the kind of people like you who just wave it away as "paranoid conspiracy" that makes big tech and governments this creepy mass data hoarding entities. Not only that, 3/4 of these surveillance ideas undermine the very foundations of safe online communication because they always want to have a backdoor in everything "just in case" they might need it to... checks the notes "save the children". If you put a backdoor into encryption chain there is no encryption chain anymore. You know what encryption keeps safe? Your medical records, your online shopping and credit card during payment, your photos in the cloud, your emails, your passwords, everything. There is ZERO guarantee only the good guys will use it. And if you think police suddenly can't apprehend child abusers because of encryption, Epstein was running his entire sex trafficking ring using GMail which is not even encrypted end to end. Or to make matters even worse, USA has a **** and a good buddy of Epstein as a president. Absolutely NOTHING has been done to address it. Maxwell just got a better "hotel" room as a reward. This clearly shows how they absolutely don't really care about the children but they care about the absolute control over all of us. And you're defending them here. Good grief. On top of constant attempts to insert backdoors into encryption chain, the entire age verification nonsense is again entirely over reaching, creepy, invades everyone's privacy with premise of yet again "protecting the children" instead of demanding device makers to provide simple and powerful tools for PARENTS to control how their children use devices and what they do on them. THIS would be the way, not the stupid age verification for everyone. Imagine if government would be dictating companies how their phones work and not the company's IT department. The parents should be the IT department to their children. And for everyone excusing "they are not knowledgeable enough" buuuuuulsheat. We live in a digital age, if you have children now, you absolutely are well versed in digital everything at least to basic extent. If you're not, how do you even function in these times then? Reality is that parents are just lazy and don't want to deal with this. They want government to raise their kids because they are too busy scrolling stupid Instagram and Tiktok or some bs.
    • You could make the argument that K should not be included, but FC, the fried chicken, is not the framework, it's the product. It's the Paint in Paint.NET. A closer analogy is if KFC included the name of the deep fryer they used. HennyPennyFC.
    • Flying as the central point eh... As a massive Spyro fan who has replayed the Reignited Trilogy three times and the originals 4 times... I have some doubts, but maybe...
    • Apple is expanding Private Cloud Compute beyond its own data centers by Pradeep Viswanathan At WWDC 2026, as part of the improved Apple Intelligence capabilities, Apple today announced that it is expanding Private Cloud Compute (PCC), its privacy-focused cloud infrastructure for Apple Intelligence, beyond its own data centers for the first time. Private Cloud Compute was designed to handle Apple Intelligence requests that are too complex to run fully on-device. The PCC system does not store user data and does not allow Apple or anyone else to access user requests. Last year, Apple also expanded its Security Bounty program with rewards of up to $1 million for researchers who could find serious vulnerabilities in PCC. Until now, Apple's PCC data centers were using Apple's own silicon. As part of the expansion, Apple is working with Google and NVIDIA to run new Apple Intelligence workloads on Google Cloud systems powered by NVIDIA GPUs. Apple will be using this new infrastructure to execute more demanding AI tasks while maintaining the same privacy and security guarantees of PCC. The new implementation uses NVIDIA Confidential Computing with NVIDIA GPUs, Intel CPUs with TDX, and Google’s Titan chip. Apple says it has worked with Google to build additional protections beyond a traditional confidential computing deployment. Despite the expansion to third-party data centers, Apple claims that its core PCC requirements remain unchanged, including stateless computation, no privileged runtime access, non-targetability, and verifiable transparency. The company highlighted that it will continue to control the PCC software stack, and Apple devices will only trust PCC software that has been cryptographically approved by Apple. To take security to the next level, Apple mentioned that it is maintaining an append-only ledger of Google Cloud hardware that is part of the PCC fleet. The company claims this will help reduce the risk of supply chain attacks. In addition to AI infrastructure, Apple also worked with Google to use technologies behind the Gemini family of models to build the next generation of Apple Foundation Models to power Apple Intelligence features across on-device and cloud workloads. As expected, for more demanding AI tasks like agentic tool use and complex reasoning, Apple will rely on the expanded PCC infrastructure running on Google Cloud. The expansion of PCC on Google Cloud will gradually ramp toward the full set of protections during the summer preview period. As before, Apple will also publish binaries for public inspection, provide research tooling, and give researchers access to live PCC nodes in research mode through the Apple Security Bounty Program.
  • Recent Achievements

    • Very Popular
      Captain_Eric earned a badge
      Very Popular
    • One Month Later
      amusc earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • One Month Later
      DJC50PLUS earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • Week One Done
      DJC50PLUS earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • Proficient
      Eric Biran went up a rank
      Proficient
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      506
    2. 2
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      222
    3. 3
      ATLien_0
      92
    4. 4
      +Edouard
      86
    5. 5
      Steven P.
      81
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!