What do 'enabled' and 'disabled' UAC virtualization mean?

catalogue · 02 Jul 2014

In the task manager in the column for UAC virtualization, "not allowed" means a thing is running as administrator. But what do 'enabled' and 'disabled' mean?

I don't know what virtualization is but it's safe to say I don't need to get deeply involved with it. I only have one computer and I'm the only person who uses it. I guess virtualization would have something to do with other user accounts or installing other OSs or something, which I don't do. I only need to know enough for basic security purposes.

There's this thread but it doesn't say what the terms mean:

Process - See if running as administrator (elevated)

maxie · 02 Jul 2014

Hi there .. Read the Link below it should explain all you need to know .. Just leave things as they are in the Task Manager that is normal ..

Virtualization - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

LMiller7 · 02 Jul 2014

Explaining UAC virtualization is rather difficult. To understand that you must first understand some rather difficult concepts. To further complicate matters the term "virtualization" has multiple meanings. I haven't been able to find any simple explanations, probably because it isn't simple.

The link provided by maxie describes some meanings of virtualization but I don't think any specifically relate to this usage.

This can be a big deal for software developers but for the average computer user it is of little importance.

logicearth · 02 Jul 2014

In this case it means, UAC is going to redirect registry and folder writes and reads from locations the application does NOT have access to, redirect to a "virtual" store as it were making the application believe its writing to a protected location.

In simple terms: App tries to create files in "Program Files" UAC says it doesn't have permission redirects to a virtual store in your user directory. Same with the registry.

There are some pit falls of this...I should cove those at some point.