UAC's..question

scouse6 said:

Why is it that after installing a program and giving the ok to UAC to proced,I have to give UAC permission every time the program loads.???
For example Superantispyware, asks UAC's permission everytime.
Many thanks

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UAC by design does not "remember" previous choices. This is to make sure that the system level event that's occurring in the present is being initiated by you and not malware. In other words because a program like SuperAntiSpyware is accessing areas of the system that are protected Windows wants to make sure this access is being given intentionally ( every single time :) ). It's understandably annoying because we don't want to keep repeating ourselves, but unfortunately Windows can't know where the request is coming from. Symantec has a UAC tool for Vista that "remembers" choices, but unfortunately doesn't offer a Windows 7 compatible version.

Johnson said:

Hello Victek,

My understanding of UAC is:

UAC is not a HIPs, nor a execution monitor as such, and if UAC caught a specific piece of malware, it would be purely coincidental. UAC does not distinguish between malware and the user - it's all the same to UAC. All it does is give a heads up.

The rational for UAC is to "force" users to run as standard users and not as admins which a great many are wont to do.

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You're correct that UAC does not distinguish between malware and the user, but that's not by design, it's because it can't. I've read that UAC is not meant to be a security barrier, but practically speaking what other purpose does it have? Why put up with it if not to gain some security against malware attacking the system with admin privileges?

UAC has the same weakness as a security program that requires user input - too many users cannot properly evaluate the prompts and usually click "yes" to make them go away. UAC doesn't force users to run as standard/limited users if they have admin accounts. The only way to do that is to actually use a Limited User Account which forces the user to input admin credentials in response to UAC prompts. In my experience in the business world the LUA is used as much to prevent the user from making changes to the system as to protect it from infection. It's a control thing.

I don't think we disagree about how it works, but it's debatable what purpose it serves

techincally even if you are running as a admin the application still needs to elevate privileges (which is why most software that has been developed in the past few years that would normally need to be elevated does it in two steps...)

one is through a service which has already admin (or if the programmer chooses system level) privileges with another program acting as gui and passing instructions to the service to do

i believe that at first that it was a way for compatibility (older apps that needed to) while mantaning security at the same time.