You Bloody Idiots OR A Tale of M$

[ThunderPeel2001]

Yes, but it's toned down big time. People generally don't tinker with settings, especially in Control Panel. I obviously turned it off, but the majority of people wouldn't, despite the annoyance.

Turning off UAC is a terrible idea. It always makes my toes curl when someone tells me they've done that.

[Orv]

Turning off UAC is a terrible idea. It always makes my toes curl when someone tells me they've done that.

It's never done anything useful for me. Ever. It always pops up at the worst times, I've got my own security in place.

[Patters]

Vista wasn't that bad: UAC was a pain, Drivers were awful, compatibility with older software sucked. The main problem was that it was sold with hardware that barely ran it.

[toblix]

It always pops up at the worst times.

I'm probably imagining something far more hilarious than what you're actually talking about. What are those "worst times"?

[Orv]

I'm probably imagining something far more hilarious than what you're actually talking about. What are those "worst times"?

Any single time I want to do something on my computer.

[toblix]

Sounds like a pain. Do you install a lot of applications?

[Orv]

Sounds like a pain. Do you install a lot of applications?

Other than games obviously, which would cause it to flip out in plenty of ways by themselves, a fair few. Gods forbid anything wants to connect to the internet. Basically, if something ran on your computer, UAC would reach out and slap at it until you told it to go away. Anything at all.

[toblix]

Hm, sounds almost like a bug. I haven't had those kinds of problems with it all.

Also, I thought internet connections would be handled by the firewall. I've never seen UAC interfere with that.

[elmuerte]

I've used Vista for years, and UAC was quite often annoying. Windows 7 has a much friendlier xsudo, erm... UAC. I usually only get UAC when installing applications, or starting older games via steam. I wish Steam was less dumb (a Windows less retarted). For non-steam old games I simply chown the game files after installing and then I don't need admin rights to run the game. But steam still wants to UAC me. As for Windows... why does it always need admin privs to install simple applications that can run perfectly fine without messing with admin locations. This stuff has been possible in various unix systems for years, but of course it's up to Microsoft to reinvent the wheel but make it squared.

[toblix]

Could it be that application installers are doing things that require admin privileges when they shouldn't? I know one of Microsoft's huge problems is having to cater to software that does things badly and incorrectly – maybe you don't have to do admin stuff to install software, but installers do it anyway?

[elmuerte]

No, don't blame the installers. I've made installers that didn't need admin privileges, but windows vista/7 demanded elevation when starting the installer. On Windows XP the installer ran for users without admin privs, but vista and 7 wanted elevation. Don't know what set it off, but there was no "I want elevation" flag set in the installer.

[ThunderPeel2001]

It's crazy to run your system without UAC these days. As I've pointed out before, the reason why XP didn't give people "hassle" was that Microsoft just thought it would be easier to have all users running as Administrators by default. This meant that every bit of software you ran had complete Admin rights -- the ability to do anything to your system, whether you wanted it to, or not. Any program could read/write/delete ANY file on your system without having to ask for your permission. It was utterly insane and very outdated.

Vista introduced the type of security that should have already been in place, in the guise of UAC. By default, every user now ran with normal User priviledges instead of Administrator -- and if a program needed access to system files/folders, or other folders it wouldn't normally have access to, it needed to ask your permission to be allowed to do so.

It's not perfect solution, but it's the best Windows has at the moment, and it's a damn sight better than not having anything.

Controversially for those who are aware of security issues, MS reduced the default level of UAC for Windows 7 so the user would get less nag windows -- even though it meant their systems weren't as protected as with Vista. Yes, the default security went DOWN a notch... and people think it's better. *sigh*

Needless to say, you can't just install some virus software and turn off UAC, thinking you've got a replacement.

[Orv]

Needless to say, you can't just install some virus software and turn off UAC, thinking you've got a replacement.

And yet this is what I've done with zero hitches.

[SiN]

For the record, my PC is just a glorified Steam Console. I do all my real computing on a Mac, which has a proper user/system separation. For Windows, I think (a) installing software from trusted sources only, and ( using a secure browser, will get you almost all the way.

I get why UAC exists, and why it has to be the way it is, but it doesn't make it acceptable from a user's point of view. By giving the user a bunch of "ARE YOU SURE?!" prompts, Windows does not fix anything. Nobody ever reads these or presses No on them. All it does is absolve Windows from the consequences.

[ThunderPeel2001]

And yet this is what I've done with zero hitches.

Every computer is secure until it's compromised. By saying "zero hitches" it's like you believe your system is bullet-proof or something(?).

For the record, my PC is just a glorified Steam Console. I do all my real computing on a Mac, which has a proper user/system separation. For Windows, I think (a) installing software from trusted sources only, and ( using a secure browser, will get you almost all the way.

I get why UAC exists, and why it has to be the way it is, but it doesn't make it acceptable from a user's point of view. By giving the user a bunch of "ARE YOU SURE?!" prompts, Windows does not fix anything. Nobody ever reads these or presses No on them. All it does is absolve Windows from the consequences.

OSX uses exacty the same system, they just don't call it UAC. They also ask for your password.

[SiN]

OSX uses exacty the same system, they just don't call it UAC. They also ask for your password.

Yes, but OS X asks *far* less frequently because of the user/system separation.

Windows is shoehorning The Right Thing To Do into their somewhat "wrong" system. OS X just got it right from the start.

[Orv]

Every computer is secure until it's compromised. By saying "zero hitches" it's like you believe your system is bullet-proof or something(?).

Of course not. However, I do know what everything I install does and what it accesses. Not being stupid happens to be incredibly effective in making sure your computer doesn't spontaneously die.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Yes, but OS X asks *far* less frequently because of the user/system separation.

Windows is shoehorning The Right Thing To Do into their somewhat "wrong" system. OS X just got it right from the start.

I completely agree, but your criticism of that system was that, "all it does is absolve Windows from the consequences". It's the fact that Windows is an old fashioned operating system that causes a lot of problems, not the UAC style security.

[ThunderPeel2001]

Of course not. However, I do know what everything I install does and what it accesses. Not being stupid happens to be incredibly effective in making sure your computer doesn't spontaneously die.

Then why do you have anti-virus software? ;-P

[Orv]

Then why do you have anti-virus software? ;-P

Questionable browsing practices. (Just force of habit by this point.)

[brkl]

Orvidos, how do you know what the software you install does? Wouldn't that require access to the source code of each piece of software along with actually going through the source code?

[Orv]

Well, I don't know every single interaction that something does, obviously, but I'm not going around installing deletebootini.exe or anything. I haven't had any problems of the sort that UAC is supposed to prevent, and almost everything I do requires you to run it in Administrator anyway, so. (< Slight hyperbole. A lot of games/game installers are real annoying about Admin rights.)

(How did we get here?)

[SiN]

I completely agree, but your criticism of that system was that, "all it does is absolve Windows from the consequences". It's the fact that Windows is an old fashioned operating system that causes a lot of problems, not the UAC style security.

Agreed. However, the age old question applies here: "if a message box appears and no one is around to read it, does it convey its message?"

(in other words, because UAC prompts happen so frequently, users stop reading & caring about it. On Mac, it occurs far less frequently, therefore users at least pay a bit more attention to it)