Windows 7 awkward feel, missing WinXP, need advice
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The right way would be using a limited user account, make sure that your limited user account can ONLY read system related files/subsystems (including registry). This way is MUCH SAFER than using that weird resource hogging UAC.
zzz2496
what do you think UAC does? exactly what i have quoted, as i understand it, (and im sure someone will correct me if i am wrong) with UAC enabled, your account is a limited user account, UAC will run programs that get elevated as the built in admin account, exactly the same as would happen if you actually set up an admin account and a limited account, it doesnt "check" anything, UAC doesnt kick in until a program, or windows asks for admin priveliges, otherwise it is dormant,
even running a limited user account, and using another admin account for "elevation" will prompt a UAC for the password of the admin account, so how exactly is it faster?
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While I understand that sandboxing can be resource intensive, all of the testing that I have performed with a stopwatch and a controlled test build hasn't shown hardly any difference with UAC on or off. I've measured startup and shut down times and have run through a handful of tests involving a handful of apps..some of which required UAC and some which don't require UAC and the timing tests haven't shown much difference at all.
While I agree that using a standard account is a far better security setup, I think it's somewhat impractical for most people. The amount of time to log off and on as a secondary admin account will consume far more time than the UAC system is going to consume. And when people have 2 accounts (one a full admin and 1 a standard restricted user)...it's natural for them to simply use the admin account for everything. Thus, in my opinion, the UAC system provides a nice middle ground.
In short, I just don't find the actual UAC system to be very resource hogging at all. Perhaps it's because every machine that I have used with Windows 7 is simply powerful enough to mask the issue.
Woops, sorry... here's what you can try... open "Device Manager" or "Computer Management" with and without UAC (both will invoke UAC prompt). For applications that is behaving "properly", those won't slow down. I access this kind of subsystems all the time, so I benefit a lot from disabling UAC. Opening "Computer Management" never felt this fast.
As for privilege escalation needs, you can always run the right way --> "Run as" command... This is the correct way to escalate your privilege in ANY modern operating systems, let it be UNIX (SUN SOLARIS, IBM AIX, HP UX, etc) or Linux (RedHat, SuSE, Debian, etc). In Linux/UNIX world, there's the "sudo" and "su" command, equivalent to "Run as". You don't need to log off...
As for "resource hogging" comment, I see that your computer is WAY faster than mine, so maybe on your computer, the overhead can be neglected. On my computer, disabling UAC made my computer much faster, it's like night and day...
zzz2496
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<<Woops, sorry... here's what you can try... open "Device Manager" or "Computer Management" with and without UAC (both will invoke UAC prompt).>>
This is way above my head (and going off topic) But can I just say that I have UAC turned on and Device manager comes up in about a second with NO UAC warning!
So, no delay there.
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The right way would be using a limited user account, make sure that your limited user account can ONLY read system related files/subsystems (including registry). This way is MUCH SAFER than using that weird resource hogging UAC.
zzz2496
what do you think UAC does? exactly what i have quoted, as i understand it, (and im sure someone will correct me if i am wrong) with UAC enabled, your account is a limited user account, UAC will run programs that get elevated as the built in admin account, exactly the same as would happen if you actually set up an admin account and a limited account, it doesnt "check" anything, UAC doesnt kick in until a program, or windows
asks for admin priveliges, otherwise it is dormant,
even running a limited user account, and using another admin account for "elevation" will prompt a UAC for the password of the admin account, so how exactly is it faster?
No, your user is still an Admin user, your "token" is not. This "token" is what UAC checks. If your "token" is limited user, then the current process (whatever it is, let it be an installer or whatever) will be limited AS IF it's running under limited user privilege, write down the giant "AS IF". This "AS IF" checks is done by UAC every time ANY program/application do ANYTHING. If it accesses an "admin area", UAC will then "bark" at the user, asking for compliance. These checks are what impacts the performance of the computer.
This is weird in my opinion, in a real multi user environment like *nix, you MUST BE root to be able to destroy the system, no other way. If you're a limited user, then you are a limited user and forever banned from admin areas. In 7/Vista, Microsoft wants to mimic this behavior but it is too "expensive" to teach Windows users to properly use "multi user" usage model, so they came up with UAC, a subsystem that can make a super user to be as if a limited user, which is just plain WRONG to begin with.... They do it all the way around, limiting a super user by doing checks everywhere and processing overheads... sigh... sandbox oh sandbox...
Read this and this about "tokens"...
zzz2496
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<<Woops, sorry... here's what you can try... open "Device Manager" or "Computer Management" with and without UAC (both will invoke UAC prompt).>>
This is way above my head (and going off topic) But can I just say that I have UAC turned on and Device manager comes up in about a second with NO UAC warning!
So, no delay there.
That is weird, in my system, "Device Manager" and "Computer Management" icon have little yellow/blue shield on it, thus the UAC confirmation...
zzz2496
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fair enough my understanding was a bit off, but the basic principle is the same, by the way, i just disabled UAC and ran a few random apps to test your theory, including disk management, computer management, and device manager like you recommended, there was no noticable improvement in speeds, and my computer is slower than yours....
as to the "shield" that simply means that it needs to run as "full admin" but windows processes automatically elevate themselves without prompting
but eh, im backing out of this thread, its going way OT and im not going to be dragged into a pointless argument
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Woops, sorry... here's what you can try... open "Device Manager" or "Computer Management" with and without UAC (both will invoke UAC prompt). For applications that is behaving "properly", those won't slow down. I access this kind of subsystems all the time, so I benefit a lot from disabling UAC. Opening "Computer Management" never felt this fast.
Thanks for giving me something tangible that I could test.
Here was the test that I performed. On my laptop (Dell E6400 with Intel Core 2 Duo P8600 at 2.40Ghz with 4GB of RAM running Windows 32-bit Enterprise), I turned off the machine. I started my stop watch from the time that I hit the power button. I waited until exactly 2 minutes before I clicked on the Start Orb, then right clicked on My Computer and choose Manage. This gave the machine time to boot and get services started etc. I then ran the test 3 times with UAC on and 3 times with it off. Here are the results averaged.
Avg time with UAC enabled : 2:14.43
Avg time with UAC turned off: 2:13.85
So, there was a difference...albeit small.
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fair enough my understanding was a bit off, but the basic principle is the same, by the way, i just disabled UAC and ran a few random apps to test your theory, including disk management, computer management, and device manager like you recommended, there was no noticable improvement in speeds, and my computer is slower than yours....
as to the "shield" that simply means that it needs to run as "full admin" but windows processes automatically elevate themselves without prompting
but eh, im backing out of this thread, its going way OT and im not going to be dragged into a pointless argument
Very true :)
Woops, sorry... here's what you can try... open "Device Manager" or "Computer Management" with and without UAC (both will invoke UAC prompt). For applications that is behaving "properly", those won't slow down. I access this kind of subsystems all the time, so I benefit a lot from disabling UAC. Opening "Computer Management" never felt this fast.
Thanks for giving me something tangible that I could test.
Here was the test that I performed. On my laptop (Dell E6400 with Intel Core 2 Duo P8600 at 2.40Ghz with 4GB of RAM running Windows 32-bit Enterprise), I turned off the machine. I started my stop watch from the time that I hit the power button. I waited until exactly 2 minutes before I clicked on the Start Orb, then right clicked on My Computer and choose Manage. This gave the machine time to boot and get services started etc. I then ran the test 3 times with UAC on and 3 times with it off. Here are the results averaged.
Avg time with UAC enabled : 2:14.43
Avg time with UAC turned off: 2:13.85
So, there was a difference...albeit small.
Err.. I forgot to mention, the 64bit version... I use the 64bit. The 32bit version is somewhat faster, I don't know what MS did in the 64bit, but it's slower in 64 than 32. By the way, we should stop before OT warning...
zzz2496
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Err.. I forgot to mention, the 64bit version... I use the 64bit. The 32bit version is somewhat faster, I don't know what MS did in the 64bit, but it's slower in 64 than 32. By the way, we should stop before OT warning...
zzz2496
I'll try the tests again on my 64-bit machine later...it's just more powerful and I was trying to eliminate a powerful machine from masking the problem.
I don't really think we are that far off topic. The discussion was to make Windows 7 more like Windows XP...thus disabling this UAC system is going to be a discussion point if this topic is to be complete. There are 2 schools of thought on UAC...those who see benefit and those who don't. This commentary (as long as it remains civil) should prove valuable to others who are also considering making changes such as these to improve performance. It's quite possible that our work and effort could save them some trouble.
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I intend to keep UAC enabled even if it costs me a whole second or two. The added layer of protection is worth it since, like many others, I run with an admin account - not the hidden admin account.