UAC and You

Charles Kane · 11 Jun 2009

garbanzo said:

half the people here are doing that once a week as these new builds leak out. it's not a big deal.

What you say makes sense.
But at least part of the problem is the OTHER half. They aren't up to it, or its too time consuming (especially in a work/business environment), or its just a hassle that can (largely) be avoided. (PS CS4 take more than 25mins for me to install - alone)

Also there is a small propagation problem.

I'd be happy ditching my AV, but really it hardly impinges on my life at all so why bother. With 7 I HAVE ditched any 3rd party firewall so a 2 second interference from UAC every now and again doesn't trouble me - it also keeps me aware of the OS which really I don't mind.

garysgold · 11 Jun 2009

True, providing you do nothing important on your computer like entering credit card info to buy something. We had a guy over at Vista that was telling us how smart he was and didn't use UAC. A few days later his personal files were corrupt, he couldn't do anything with his computer except reformat and start over. Everyone whines they want more security and when it comes along they whine about that. Security means less usability. No way around that. IMO, UAC is a good mix of the two and much better than having to log into an admin acct. every time I want to change a setting. With todays crackers out there, it's no longer a matter of if you will be attacked, but how often. JMHO.

OEM · 11 Jun 2009

This seems to be getting a lot of play lately. lol

I too agree that the UAC is not that big of a deal with Windows 7, Vista though is a different story. Whats one more click in a day filled with probably hundreds of clicks.

If you want to keep the UAC on as I do, but want to allow some programs that require the UAC prompt to run without it, check this tutorial out.

Elevated Program Shortcut without UAC Prompt - Create

Mystere · 11 Jun 2009

garbanzo said:

paranoid much?

i ran XP for 8 years before switching to 7. XP had no UAC, i yet somehow i survived. i have UAC off in 7, and i continue to survive.

First, Malware attacks are far more sophisticated today than they were 8 years ago. They often combine multiple vectors. However, security is only half of what UAC does (I notice you ignored the other part of it).

Some apps require UAC. And the problem is that once you turn UAC off, you let apps walk all over the OS, thus turning it back on again causes more problems because the apps have already writen their files in places they now can't access.

Lastly, as I said originally. If you understand everything that UAC does and the ramifications of turning off UAC then be my guest. The problem is the people who turn it off without even knowing what they're disabling by doing so.

Mystere · 11 Jun 2009

To the admins that moved this post to System Security, I don't think this belongs there. That's why I posted it in General Discussion. UAC is only partially a security mechanism. It's also a usability mechanism.

More importantly, I think the discussion should be read by everyone, not only those who venture into the Security forum. The post was precisely made for the benefit of those that don't really understand security, and thus those people aren't likely to come into Security board.

Of course I doubt the admins will read this, which kind of illustrates my point.

Charles Kane · 11 Jun 2009

People will find this better here than in general - because it IS security. If they are interested in UAC they'll find it. Otherwise they won't read it anyway.
No need to be presumptuous - the same admins who moved it will pretty certainly see your latest post (and ignore it).
You may see yourself as a teacher with really important info - but like it or not others may not want to enroll in your class. And this isn't YOUR school anyway.
You posted good stuff. Most agreed. Attraction works better than imposition.

Mystere · 11 Jun 2009

Charles Kane said:

People will find this better here than in general - because it IS security.

No, it's only partially security.

But that's not the point. Your argument is similar to someone saying "The directions to the cafeteria should only be posted in the Cafeteria itself because that's what it's about." This ignores the fact that if you don't know where the cafeteria is in the first place, you can't find the directions.

The people who are regular security forum readers will already know most of the issues with UAC. So it defeats the purpose to post such information where all the people reading it already know it.

Burgurne · 11 Jun 2009

Mystere said:

No, it's only partially security.

But that's not the point. Your argument is similar to someone saying "The directions to the cafeteria should only be posted in the Cafeteria itself because that's what it's about." This ignores the fact that if you don't know where the cafeteria is in the first place, you can't find the directions.

The people who are regular security forum readers will already know most of the issues with UAC. So it defeats the purpose to post such information where all the people reading it already know it.

I have to agree on that. If the headline in "General discission" was not there I would never ahve seen this threa

Charles Kane · 11 Jun 2009

I hear you. I hope your information is widely known. As far as I can tell "don't turn off" UAC is widely supported by the Team Members and Gurus and in their posts throughout the site.

Sven · 12 Jun 2009

Burgurne is right. That's go for me too. I normally check "generel" and "gaming" and "drivers" as I'm just a normal PC-gamer, and I don't know enough of the deeper inside in Windows to begin fiddle around. UAC was indeed one of the things I have been thinking of turning off, but some nice people inhere has learned me some tricks to starts my favorit-programs without warnings allthough UAC is turned on.
Again, if this thread was not in "Generel" I would easely have overlooked it, and then I might ended up turning it off, without knowing how much else, that would have been "out of order".
I gave a click to Charles Kane's reputation for this one.

With all that said, I can see why staff moved this thread to "security", because else the "generel" would be flooded. Nice thing though, they do leave a link in "generel" so us, that is not so clever, still can find the info.