is it bad to turn off user account control?

IMHO, it's better to have UAC at off... It's not a security feature (it's written several times in MSDN). It's a way to force developers to develop proper applications that respects user class differentiation. Having UAC on doesn't protect you from virus/malware, it just made it a tiny bit hassle for the virus/malware to get installed. I got mine at off, and so are my colleagues and close friends... We know what we're doing, so UAC is off for us, I don't really know about you, but that's where I'm at...

zzz2496

MacGyvr said:

24c said:

Tepid said:

Turning off UAC and running as admin are just not a smart thing to do.
Regardless of how safe you think you are when running Your system, blah blah blah.

It's just my opinion, yeah, but it's the right one.

Your opinion may be right for you, it's not so right for me.
I turned UAC off in the 1st Vista beta and have not had it on since, never a problem.
My machine.......my opinion rules.

Your opinion may rule for YOUR machine, but don't hand out possibly harmful advise to users who don't know better. In some cases, keeping your opinion to yourself is better.

+1 Well stated.

I personally have UAC turned on, but set not to dim the desktop. OP, you might find this useful as the screen dimming is what most likely is making your programs slow to start.

MacGyvr said:

brianzion said:

its ok :)to shut this off if you have a decent internet security installed (kaspersky for me) when i download programs i scan it before i install , always a good idea.

Incorrect....UAC has nothing to do with having "internet security." UAC is about allowing programs to run with elevated privileges.

Kaspersky alerts you and requests user input if any program starts exhibiting suspicious behavior. So it basically duplicates UAC functionality. Especially since it actually tells you exactly what the program is wanting to do, rather than just reporting a vague request for admin access. Kaspersky, among many other Internet security suites, also has pretty intense local security.

Richardc269 said:

If he has a program that keeps asking to be run on it's own, then it might be something he doesn't want.

The OP seemed to quite clearly indicate that the prompt is being called by programs that he is running intentionally. Not to mention, if you have unwanted programs trying to run themselves as admin on your PC ... well, you probably already have serious security issues...

BCXtreme said:

I personally have UAC turned on, but set not to dim the desktop. OP, you might find this useful as the screen dimming is what most likely is making your programs slow to start.

MacGyvr said:

brianzion said:

its ok :)to shut this off if you have a decent internet security installed (kaspersky for me) when i download programs i scan it before i install , always a good idea.

Incorrect....UAC has nothing to do with having "internet security." UAC is about allowing programs to run with elevated privileges.

Kaspersky alerts you and requests user input if any program starts exhibiting suspicious behavior. So it basically duplicates UAC functionality. Especially since it actually tells you exactly what the program is wanting to do, rather than just reporting a vague request for admin access. Kaspersky, among many other Internet security suites, also has pretty intense local security.

Brian no longer has Kaspersky installed; it was causing his system to BOSD.

It's not a security feature (it's written several times in MSDN). It's a way to force developers to develop proper applications that respects user class differentiation. Having UAC on doesn't protect you from virus/malware,

Just to reiterate.... UAC is to stop applications from running automatically with admin privileges. So, you need to go back and read up a bit more, because I think you misunderstand it's purpose.

Yes, it can prevent many things, including viruses and malware (no not all, but some) from installing to ones machine. End of Story.

UAC is not an end all be all security feature, it is however an extra layer.

Tepid said:

It's not a security feature (it's written several times in MSDN). It's a way to force developers to develop proper applications that respects user class differentiation. Having UAC on doesn't protect you from virus/malware,

Just to reiterate.... UAC is to stop applications from running automatically with admin privileges. So, you need to go back and read up a bit more, because I think you misunderstand it's purpose.

Yes, it can prevent many things, including viruses and malware (no not all, but some) from installing to ones machine. End of Story.

UAC is not an end all be all security feature, it is however an extra layer.

Yes, I know what UAC is... I still don't think it's a security feature. It's a hindrance that MS created to teach Win32 programmers to program the correct way (that is to honor non admin user class, and not call anything that is system critical directly).
Here's the thing, UAC is created so that we all can use our "Admin" class users without being an actual Administrator, that's it. It virtualize every app we call into UAC sandbox automatically. Unless specifically asked, no app will run with Admin privilege EVEN IF you are an Admin. I've stated this many many times in many different threads other than this. UAC is one of MS's "stupid" solution to a classic multi user system problem that have been solved many years ago in Linux/UNIX.

If you use a limited user account for day to day use, UAC is adding useless processing overhead, it's useless in a limited user case because the user it self is already limited. UAC is made to limit an admin account so that it loses it's "admin" privilege unless the users agrees the UAC confirmation box that a program requests "Admin" privilege, which is stupid at best. I can't really deny the fact that there are more novice users in Windows world, MS caters them... It's not MS's fault... I still disable UAC, I don't see the point of it's active in my system. I use limited user for day to day use, and fast user switch to admin to install things. Everything runs faster without UAC (do not ask the speed difference because I have 110++ processes upon boot up, my rig is running as a development workstation and a DB server and a virtualization server, all in one). But this is me and my computer, and my close friends, and my colleagues...

zzz2496

CarlTR6 said:

BCXtreme said:

I personally have UAC turned on, but set not to dim the desktop. OP, you might find this useful as the screen dimming is what most likely is making your programs slow to start.

MacGyvr said:

Incorrect....UAC has nothing to do with having "internet security." UAC is about allowing programs to run with elevated privileges.

Kaspersky alerts you and requests user input if any program starts exhibiting suspicious behavior. So it basically duplicates UAC functionality. Especially since it actually tells you exactly what the program is wanting to do, rather than just reporting a vague request for admin access. Kaspersky, among many other Internet security suites, also has pretty intense local security.

Brian no longer has Kaspersky installed; it was causing his system to BOSD.

Was not saying otherwise. Was merely explaining how an Internet security program DOES in fact have to do with UAC.