Vista Security Is Annoying by Design

[YoKenny1]

Vista Security Is Annoying by Design

According to Microsoft, the more annoyed you are, the more pressure is on developers to clean up their act.

Neil McAllister

PC World

Tuesday, April 15, 2008; 12:19 AM

If you're running Windows Vista, you're familiar with User Access Control (UAC). It's the security subsystem that pops up those irritating dialog boxes asking whether you really want to install software, or modify system files, or write to the Registry.

UAC may be Vista's most-hated feature,but as it turns out, it may also be its best-designed. Asreported by Ars Technica,UAC was created with a very specific purpose in mind: to annoy you.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte...isrc=newsletter

[lordpake]

In a way, they have a point. No one is gonna change their programming habits, unless the big bad MS tells them otherwise

The way I see it, the change must come from software devs.

[GT500]

I've been saying since I was first introduced to the feature that the UAC should have been the security model in use since Windows 95. The concept is long overdue on the Windows side, and it's obsurd that the extra security that it brings is only now being presented to Windows users.

Users of Unix-based operating systems understand what I'm talking about when I say that doing every day tasks as a limited user, and then giving permission for each time something needs admin rights is not very restrictive. 90% of the average persons' computer use does not require admin access, so there's no reason to be logged in to your computer with admin rights for things such as word processing, e-mail, and web browsing. Such a thing is merely a recipe for disaster, as each previous version of Windows has shown over and over again.

Anyway, as a computer technician I never really find myself restricted by the UAC. I do find the confirmation popups at startup annoying, but that's because RivaTuner's drivers are not digitally signed. Some day I'm going to figure out how to get around that, but for now I just don't have the motivation. Clicking a button isn't so annoying that I want to spend hours searching for a solution...

[Hardhead]

For users that want to disable UAC in Vista can follow the directions here.

[John L. Galt]

I need to find a nice long post I made about UAC along the same lines as GT500 - not sure where I made it at, but I should archive that - it basically puts the blame on M$ for breaking away from the normal standard of having 'lusers' using the system (the term being derived from limited users, but later also being a slightly derogatory term for naive / clueless end users).