Do you use UAC (User Account Control)?

Wenda · 11 Jun 2013

I wonder how many running with UAC turned off completely first encountered it in its Vista incarnation. It drove me potty during the Vista beta/RC stage, so I always ran Vista with it turned off completely. It was just too annoying.

Consequently, I ran my original W7 betas with it turned off. Once I moved to the Win 7 RTM, however, I used to run it at the second-lowest setting (and still do). At this level, it warns me if anything else tries to modify anything, but doesn't pop up to annoy me whenever I want to make changes.

This seems to be the 'sweet-spot', so I run my Vista and Win 8 UACs at the same setting.

Wenda.

EDIT: A heads-up... Turning UAC off in Win 8 does not actually turn it off. It only disables the warning messages. A hack s needed to turn it off completely, and then none of the new 'apps' will install or run.

paulpicks21 · 12 Jun 2013

Wenda said:

I wonder how many running with UAC turned off completely first encountered it in its Vista incarnation. It drove me potty during the Vista beta/RC stage, so I always ran Vista with it turned off completely. It was just too annoying.

Consequently, I ran my original W7 betas with it turned off. Once I moved to the Win 7 RTM, however, I used to run it at the second-lowest setting (and still do). At this level, it warns me if anything else tries to modify anything, but doesn't pop up to annoy me whenever I want to make changes.

This seems to be the 'sweet-spot', so I run my Vista and Win 8 UACs at the same setting.

Wenda.

EDIT: A heads-up... Turning UAC off in Win 8 does not actually turn it off. It only disables the warning messages. A hack s needed to turn it off completely, and then none of the new 'apps' will install or run.

In my haste to always turn it off I didn't even check what the levels did Wenda and in all the years was not aware of this

You learn something new every day eh!
I am going to try it out like this for a while and see how I get on with it.
Thanks.

Paul.

mitchell65 · 12 Jun 2013

paulpicks21 said:

I am going to try it out like this for a while and see how I get on with it.
Thanks.

Paul.

Wow! Are we going to see a conversion here?

M1GU31 · 12 Jun 2013

No,I keep it off. Don't need windows trying to baby me, I believe I know enough what to look out for and what I open. Plus that's what my AV is for. If anything at all it just slows me down and is a disturbance.

paulpicks21 · 12 Jun 2013

mitchell65 said:

paulpicks21 said:

I am going to try it out like this for a while and see how I get on with it.
Thanks.

Paul.

Wow! Are we going to see a conversion here?

It's too early to tell but maybe yeah

Jacee · 12 Jun 2013

Yes ... UAC is enabled! It doesn't bother me at all

Alejandro85 · 12 Jun 2013

UsernameIssues said:

I would be interested in seeing a write up of malware bypassing the UAC (when it is set to the max level) without user interaction. I've searched for same and I must not be using the right search terms.

Here is one:
Windows 7 UAC whitelist: Code-injection Issue (and more)

It's a proof of concept (not an actual malware), with full source code included that exploits the totally flawed default level of UAC in a default Win7 install. The site explains how it does and the reason because this exploits actually works. The program tries (and succeeds) to open an elevated command prompt without triggering an UAC prompt. The article is from 2009 when Win7 was beta, and all the bugs are still there.
All that applies only to the default UAC level. At max or as standard user, as it was in Vista, that technique no longer works and the exploit does trigger a prompt. Apparently there is no known exploit at max level.

anutter223 · 12 Jun 2013

i was using uac until a month ago i did turn it off because it is annoying but if you are into downloading many things please keep it on so you can see if it has a trusted certificate or not.

for example if you download something that is from Microsoft and you get redirected to another website to download it it maybe counterfeited and be a virus sooo if you have uac on then you can see if it has a Microsoft Certificate or not.

Jacee · 12 Jun 2013

I don't use 'default level' .... can't afford to in my line of research

UsernameIssues · 13 Jun 2013

Alejandro85 said:

UsernameIssues said:

I would be interested in seeing a write up of malware bypassing the UAC (when it is set to the max level) without user interaction. I've searched for same and I must not be using the right search terms.

Here is one:
Windows 7 UAC whitelist: Code-injection Issue (and more)

It's a proof of concept (not an actual malware), with full source code included that exploits the totally flawed default level of UAC in a default Win7 install. The site explains how it does and the reason because this exploits actually works. The program tries (and succeeds) to open an elevated command prompt without triggering an UAC prompt. The article is from 2009 when Win7 was beta, and all the bugs are still there.
All that applies only to the default UAC level. At max or as standard user, as it was in Vista, that technique no longer works and the exploit does trigger a prompt. Apparently there is no known exploit at max level.

Thanks - I had seen that article before, but had not taken the time to read thru all of it.