ANS: "What's the deal with UAC (Windows Needs Your Permission screens)" and "...But I thought I was

[Jimmy Brush]

If you have modified the shortcut like I instructed, right-clicking the
shortcut and clicking run as administrator is not necessary. Simply
double-clicking the shortcut will ask you for your permission.

You cannot use the compatability tab on a shortcut.

To use the compatability tab, you have to modify the properties of the
actual program the shortcut refers to.

To find this program quickly, click the "open file location" button on the
shortcut tab of the shortcut properties.


--
- JB
Microsoft MVP - Windows Shell/User

Windows Vista Support Faq
http://www.jimmah.com/vista/

 

[Guest]

Hello,

I've noticed that a lot of the questions in these newsgroups are either
directly or indirectly related to UAC (User Account Control). In this post,
I will go over what UAC does, how it works, the reasoning behind it, how to
use your computer with UAC on, why you shouldn't turn UAC off, and answer
some common questions and respond to common complaints about it.


* What is UAC and what does it do?

UAC mode (also known as Admin Approval Mode) is a mode of operation that
(primarily) affects the way administrator accounts work.

When UAC is turned on (which it is by default), you must explicitly give
permission to any program that wants to use "administrator" powers. Any
program that tries to use admin powers without your permission will be
denied access.


* How does UAC work

When UAC mode is enabled, every program that you run will be given only
"standard user" access to the system, even when you are logged in as an
administrator. There are only 2 ways that a program can be "elevated" to get
full admin access to the system:

- If it automatically asks you for permission when it starts up, and you
click Continue
- If you start the program with permission by right-clicking it, then
clicking Run As Administrator

A program either starts with STANDARD rights or, if you give permission,
ADMINISTRATOR rights, and once the program is running it cannot change from
one to the other.

If a program that you have already started with admin powers starts another
program, that program will automatically be given admin powers without
needing your permission. For example, if you start Windows Explorer as
administrator, and then double-click on a text file, notepad will open and
display the contents of the text file. Since notepad was opened from the
admin explorer window, notepad WILL ALSO automatically run WITH admin
powers, and will not ask for permission.


* What's the point of UAC?

UAC is designed to put control of your computer back into your hands,
instead of at the mercy of the programs running on your computer.

When logged in as an administrator in Windows XP, any program that could
somehow get itself started could take control of the entire computer without
you even knowing about it.

With UAC turned on, you must know about and authorize a program in order for
it to gain admin access to the system, REGARDLESS of how the program got
there or how it is started.

This is important to all levels of users - from home users to enterprise
administrators. Being alerted when any program tries to use admin powers and
being able to unilaterally disallow a program from having such power is a
VERY powerful ability. No longer is the security of the system tantamount to
"crossing one's fingers and hoping for the best" - YOU now control your
system.


* How do I effectively use my computer with UAC turned on?

It's easy. Just keep in mind that programs don't have admin access to your
computer unless you give them permission. Microsoft programs that come with
Windows Vista that need admin access will always ask for admin permissions
when you start them. However, most other programs will not.

This will change after Windows Vista is released - all Windows Vista-era
programs that need admin power will always ask you for it. Until then, you
will need to run programs that need administrative powers that were not
designed for Windows Vista "as administrator".

Command-line programs do not automatically ask for permission. Not even the
built-in ones. You will need to run the command prompt "as administrator" in
order to run administrative command-line utilities.

Working with files and folders from Windows Explorer can be a real pain when
you are not working with your own files. When you are needing to work with
system files, files that you didn't create, or files from another operating
system, run Windows Explorer "as administrator". In the same vein, ANY
program that you run that needs access to system files or files that you
didn't create will need to be ran "as administrator".

If you are going to be working with the control panel for a long time,
running control.exe "as administrator" will make things less painful - you
will only be asked for permission once, instead of every time you try to
change a system-wide setting.

In short:

- Run command prompt as admin when you need to run admin utilities
- Run setup programs as admin
- Run programs not designed for Vista as admin if (and only if) they need
admin access
- Run Windows Explorer as admin when you need access to files that aren't
yours or system files
- Run programs that need access to files that aren't yours or system files
as admin
- Run control.exe as admin when changing many settings in the control panel


* UAC is annoying, I want to turn it off

Having to go through an extra step (clicking Continue) when opening
administrative programs is annoying. And it is also very frustrating to run
a program that needs admin power but doesn't automatically ask you for it
(you have to right-click these programs and click Run As Administrator for
them to run correctly).

But, keep in mind that these small inconveniences are insignificant when
weighed against the benefit: NO PROGRAM can get full access to your system
without you being informed. The first time the permission dialog pops up and
it is from some program that you know nothing about or that you do not want
to have access to your system, you will be very glad that the Cancel button
was available to you.


* Answers to common questions and responses to common criticism

Q: I have anti-virus, a firewall, a spyware-detector, or something similar.
Why do I need UAC?

A: Detectors can only see known threats. And of all the known threats in
existence, they only detect the most common of those threats. With UAC
turned on, *you* control what programs have access to your computer - you
can stop ALL threats. Detectors are nice, but they're not enough. How many
people do you know that have detectors of all kinds and yet are still
infested with programs that they don't want on their computer? Everyone that
I have ever helped falls into this category.


Q: Does UAC replace anti-virus, a firewall, a spyware-detector, or similar
programs?

A: No. Microsoft recommends that you use a virus scanner and/or other types
of security software. These types of programs compliment UAC: They will get
rid of known threats for you. UAC will allow you to stop unknown threats, as
well as prevent any program that you do not trust from gaining access to
your computer.


Q: I am a system administrator - I have no use for UAC.

A: Really? You don't NEED to know when a program on your computer runs with
admin powers? You are a system administrator and you really could care less
when a program runs that has full control of your system, and possibly your
entire domain? You're joking, right?


Q: UAC keeps me from accessing files and folders

A: No, it doesn't - UAC protects you from programs that would try to delete
or modify system files and folders without your knowledge. If you want a
program to have full access to the files on your computer, you will need to
run it as admin. Or as an alternative, if possible, put the files it needs
access to in a place that all programs have access to - such as your
documents folder, or any folder under your user folder.


Q: UAC stops programs from working correctly

A: If a program needs admin power and it doesn't ask you for permission when
it starts, you have to give it admin powers by right-clicking it and
clicking Run As Administrator. Programs should work like they did in XP when
you use Run As Administrator. If they don't, then this is a bug.


Q: UAC keeps me from doing things that I could do in XP

A: This is not the case. Just remember that programs that do not ask for
permission when they start do not get admin access to your computer. If you
are using a tool that needs admin access, right-click it and click Run As
Administrator. It should work exactly as it did in XP. If it does not, then
this is a bug.


Q: UAC is Microsoft's way of controlling my computer and preventing me from
using it!

A: This is 100% UNTRUE. UAC puts control of your computer IN YOUR HANDS by
allowing you to prevent unwanted programs from accessing your computer.
*Everything* that you can do with UAC turned off, you can do with it turned
on. If this is not the case, then that is a bug.


Q: I don't need Windows to hold my freaking hand! I *know* what I've got on
my computer, and I *know* when programs run! I am logged on as an
ADMINISTRATOR for a dang reason!

A: I accept the way that you think, and can see the logic, but I don't agree
with this idea. UAC is putting POWER in your hands by letting you CONTROL
what runs on your system. But you want to give up this control and allow all
programs to run willy-nilly. Look, if you want to do this go right ahead,
you can turn UAC off and things will return to how they worked in XP. But,
don't be surprised when either 1) You run something by mistake that messes
up your computer and/or domain, or 2) A program somehow gets on your
computer that you know nothing about that takes over your computer and/or
domain, and UAC would have allowed you to have stopped it.


- JB

Vista Support FAQ
http://www.jimmah.com/vista/

gee wizz thats so great unlike most i have been computing since i was 16
using dos i am 38 now and hate vista uac i am not 3 years old and i dont need
the uac reminding me every time i start a program for permission.unfortanatly
it came pre install on my new computer i will be going back to xp formating
vista off my computer forever win 95 was better than vista.I only hope that
everyone else follows suite with reinstalling xp in stead of setteling for
win vista

 

[Gunrunnerjohn]

gee wizz thats so great unlike most i have been computing since i was 16
using dos i am 38 now and hate vista uac i am not 3 years old and i dont need
the uac reminding me every time i start a program for permission.unfortanatly
it came pre install on my new computer i will be going back to xp formating
vista off my computer forever win 95 was better than vista.I only hope that
everyone else follows suite with reinstalling xp in stead of setteling for
win vista

If it bugs you that much, just disable it.

John Will
Microsoft MVP - Networking

 

[Guest]

gee wizz thats so great unlike most i have been computing since i was 16
using dos i am 38 now and hate vista uac i am not 3 years old and i dont
need
the uac reminding me every time i start a program for
permission.unfortanatly
it came pre install on my new computer i will be going back to xp
formating
vista off my computer forever win 95 was better than vista.I only hope
that
everyone else follows suite with reinstalling xp in stead of setteling for
win vista

Since UAC prompts only when elevation is required for administrative
privileges, how often are you seeing UAC?

If it's "every time I start a program", then I'd suggest that the programs
you start are either:
* badly written, and need to be replaced with updates that don't require
administrative rights
OR
* administrative tools that, in a well-managed environment, should be run
from a separate admin account from the one you use for day-to-day browsing
and email, with automatic elevation enabled (note that this is not the same
as disabling UAC!)

Really, if you're getting UAC prompts all the time, it's a sign you're using
programs that are relying on "everyone's an administrator" - that's so last
century. Think about that - for over a decade, Microsoft's best practices
have asked programmers to write for Win32, as opposed to Win16, and as a
result of that, to expect that their programs are not running under an
administrator account unless the programs require administrator rights. So
your software, if it's regular productivity software or games, is already
out of date by over ten years.

Add to this that Microsoft hasn't produced a version of Windows in which
everyone _is_ an administrator since Windows ME. So your software was
written for an operating system that's now over seven years old.

Why are you still using such old software?

Alun.
~~~~

 

[Guest]

If it bugs you that much, just disable it.

Better still, understand it and use it wisely.

With UAC turned off, you lose integrity protection and Internet Explorer's
protected mode.

Better to leave UAC on, but assign yourself a restricted account and an
administrator account; do all your work except for the administration of
your system from the restricted account, and enable automatic elevation on
the administrator account.

Alun.
~~~~

 

[Adam Albright]

Add to this that Microsoft hasn't produced a version of Windows in which
everyone _is_ an administrator since Windows ME. So your software was
written for an operating system that's now over seven years old.

Why are you still using such old software?

WTF are you talking about? Right out of the box XP ASSUMED whoever
installs it has FULL administrative rights. If there is only one user,
then he is automatically the administrator unless and until he sets up
other accounts. Further the mindset to write programs this way has
roots at guess where...non other than Microsoft's Redmond campus,
that's where.

Need proof? Get it from the horse's mouth:

http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=288259

The main problem with UAC is it is a clueless nag that doesn't learn.
Case in point take one of my applications, that's not seven years old,
but just a few years old, copyrighted in 2004 written by a MAJOR
software house.

With UAC turned on it is crippled and has it's DVD burning ability
blocked. So I elevate the application giving it Administrative rights.
Does that get rid of the nag screens? No.

When I click on the shortcut to start the application useless nag UAC
first dims my screen then stops me from doing anything showing a
message reading "an unidentified program wants to access the
computer".

To proceed I need to click allow. I need to do that every damn time I
want to use the application.

Now for the numbnut fanboy crowd what's wrong with this picture?

For starters the application isn't unknown. I clicked run as
administrator, which you need to have permission to do, so you would
think UAC would have the smarts to remember that an ADMINISTRATOR has
given his blessing to run this application, but it doesn't remember
thus it becomes nothing but an annoying nag.

Can this be fixed?

Well lets see. I checked run as administrator, still get nag screen.
I made sure the shortcut's security tab for this application has me as
owner checked with full permissions. Still get nag screen. I went to
program files and made sure the .exe file has me as owner will full
permissions. Still get nag screen. Ditto for going to the folder the
program is in and doing the same thing. Still get a damn nag screen
every damn time I run this application.

Understand yet why people HATE UAC?

No? Well let me tell you why: IT DOESN'T WORK!

 

[thetruthhurts]

WTF are you talking about? Right out of the box XP ASSUMED whoever
installs it has FULL administrative rights. If there is only one user,
then he is automatically the administrator unless and until he sets up
other accounts. Further the mindset to write programs this way has
roots at guess where...non other than Microsoft's Redmond campus,
that's where.

Need proof? Get it from the horse's mouth:

http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=288259

The main problem with UAC is it is a clueless nag that doesn't learn.
Case in point take one of my applications, that's not seven years old,
but just a few years old, copyrighted in 2004 written by a MAJOR
software house.

With UAC turned on it is crippled and has it's DVD burning ability
blocked. So I elevate the application giving it Administrative rights.
Does that get rid of the nag screens? No.

When I click on the shortcut to start the application useless nag UAC
first dims my screen then stops me from doing anything showing a
message reading "an unidentified program wants to access the
computer".

To proceed I need to click allow. I need to do that every damn time I
want to use the application.

Now for the numbnut fanboy crowd what's wrong with this picture?

For starters the application isn't unknown. I clicked run as
administrator, which you need to have permission to do, so you would
think UAC would have the smarts to remember that an ADMINISTRATOR has
given his blessing to run this application, but it doesn't remember
thus it becomes nothing but an annoying nag.

Can this be fixed?

Well lets see. I checked run as administrator, still get nag screen.
I made sure the shortcut's security tab for this application has me as
owner checked with full permissions. Still get nag screen. I went to
program files and made sure the .exe file has me as owner will full
permissions. Still get nag screen. Ditto for going to the folder the
program is in and doing the same thing. Still get a damn nag screen
every damn time I run this application.

Understand yet why people HATE UAC?

No? Well let me tell you why: IT DOESN'T WORK!

I agree that UAC is a piece of crap. Have you tried unhidding and
using super admin to get your app to work?

 

[Robert Koechl]

The main problem with UAC is it is a clueless nag that doesn't learn.
Case in point take one of my applications, that's not seven years old,
but just a few years old, copyrighted in 2004 written by a MAJOR
software house.

Adam, there is something seriously, seriously wrong with your
application if it requires admin rights. Programs which require admin
rights are an absolute disaster from a security standpoint. Obviously I
am assuming now that the software you are talking about isn't any
"systems software" (so to speak). Coming from a UNIX background it is
unthinkable for me to run any software, designed for endusers, with root
permissions.
Robert

 

[Adam Albright]

Adam, there is something seriously, seriously wrong with your
application if it requires admin rights. Programs which require admin
rights are an absolute disaster from a security standpoint. Obviously I
am assuming now that the software you are talking about isn't any
"systems software" (so to speak). Coming from a UNIX background it is
unthinkable for me to run any software, designed for endusers, with root
permissions.
Robert

That could very well be, however it worked fine under XP, I've used it
for years and otherwise works flawlessly so I hate to give it up. It
is interesting in that this application works fine with administrative
rights disabled EXCEPT for one key function, the actual burning of a
DVD. That's when Vista starts to nag if Administrative rights aren't
enabled.

Just off the top of my head it seems Vista considers an application
wanting access to a DVD burner as a security risk. That's the sole
function that generates a nag screen from UAC with this application.
As far as all the actual DVD authoring steps including the actual
writing of the VOB files UAC doesn't give a peep when this application
does any of that.

My main beef with UAC to make a crude analogy would be like Vista
demanding you go through the activation and registration process EVERY
TIME you boot the computer. Obviously that would get old fast. UAC
should be smart enough to REMEMBER via a rules list or something
similar what you told it to do the last time. It does not, which is
what makes it such a nag and why many turn if off.

I already got a mother-in-law to nag me to death, I don't need some
electronic version.

 

[John]

The biggest PITA about UAC is where you have to go to really understand all
of its tentacles. Start gpedit.msc then navigate to Local Comp police,
Windows settings, Security settings, local policies security options. At the
bottom are the UAC options.

Why did MS put something that they should have forseen as causing problems
(UAC) in such a remote place? My biggest complaint about Vista is how
difficult it is to find where to go to accomplish something.
"

 

[Robert Koechl]

That could very well be, however it worked fine under XP, I've used it
for years and otherwise works flawlessly so I hate to give it up. It
is interesting in that this application works fine with administrative
rights disabled EXCEPT for one key function, the actual burning of a
DVD. That's when Vista starts to nag if Administrative rights aren't
enabled.

Hi Adam, I totally agree with you, you should not need admin rights to
burn CDs (although I understand that under specific circumstances you
might want to prevent that users can burn security sensitive documents
and remove them from company premises)

You could try the following to get your app to work:
1) Click on the start button and type gpedit.msc into the search field
2) Right click and run as administrator
3) Go to Computer Configuration, Administrative Templates, System,
Removable Storage Access
4) Click on "CD and DVD: Deny write access" Set it to disabled, this way
write access should be granted
5) Go to User Configuration, Administrative Templates, System, Removable
Storage Access and set "CD and DVD: Deny write access" again to disabled

You might have to restart your computer. Not sure if this will work.
Also, it might be sufficient to change those settings only under "User
Configuration". Let me know if this works!
You might want to make a backup
Regards
Robert

I already got a mother-in-law to nag me to death, I don't need some
electronic version.

 

[Adam Albright]

The biggest PITA about UAC is where you have to go to really understand all
of its tentacles. Start gpedit.msc then navigate to Local Comp police,
Windows settings, Security settings, local policies security options. At the
bottom are the UAC options.

Why did MS put something that they should have forseen as causing problems
(UAC) in such a remote place? My biggest complaint about Vista is how
difficult it is to find where to go to accomplish something.

Indeed. Frankly I don't why many of the fanboys get so huffy over UAC.
Anybody can see how poorly implemented it is but wait, why listen to
me. I don't know anything. ;-)

Better to hear it from the two Microsoft guys that wrote UAC which you
can do if you got an hour to spare. While boring in places it also is
a very revealing interview. While they don't admit it in so many words
you can read between the lines the two guys ended up with the short
straw in getting picked to write the code, and aren't exactly happy
with the result, my guess they weren't given enough time to finish.
They also reveal the resistance they got for what they did with UAC
from within Microsoft, from beta testers and developers. It would be
interesting to learn WHO at Microsoft pushed UAC through in a
unfinished state.

Bottom line UAC is a work in progress. Good concept, well maybe, but
for now a poor implementation. That's my take and if you listen
carefully you'll see the guys that actually wrote the code admit it
needs work.

http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=288259

If you don't have time to listen to the whole hour plus interview,
listen to the time span between 41 and 45 minutes. Better, to the end
from that point.

 

[Alun Jones]

That could very well be, however it worked fine under XP, I've used it
for years and otherwise works flawlessly so I hate to give it up. It

It only worked fine under XP, because you were willing to make every user be
an administrator.

Those of us that have been running as a restricted user in XP for several
years have already run into this situation, and most of our 'enterprise'
tools have already been crafted to understand that they operate in a
restricted user environment unless they do something that clearly requires
administrative access.

is interesting in that this application works fine with administrative
rights disabled EXCEPT for one key function, the actual burning of a
DVD. That's when Vista starts to nag if Administrative rights aren't
enabled.

It's going to depend on how the application tries to burn the DVD.

If it demands exclusive access to the raw hardware through direct access to
the kernel-mode device driver, then yeah, that's something that is going to
require administrative rights.

If, on the other hand, it uses the published protocol for burning disks,
IMAPI, it should require only those rights that have been configured through
group policy - and I see another poster has already addressed that for you.

Just off the top of my head it seems Vista considers an application
wanting access to a DVD burner as a security risk. That's the sole
function that generates a nag screen from UAC with this application.

That makes sense, because this is the only part of the process where older
burning software would typically grab the device at low-level. And even
there, that should have been handled by having a privileged process running
as a service, and a secure communication method between user and service (so
that the service could recover from either a malicious user trying to tie up
resources, or a user who just died without properly freeing up the drive).

Note - this is how it _should_ have been handled in Windows XP, Server 2003,
2000, NT 4, NT 3.51, NT 3.1. [Not in Windows ME, 98 or 95, but that's a
different story!]

As far as all the actual DVD authoring steps including the actual
writing of the VOB files UAC doesn't give a peep when this application
does any of that.

Makes sense - all of that can be done safely entirely within a user's
session.

My main beef with UAC to make a crude analogy would be like Vista
demanding you go through the activation and registration process EVERY
TIME you boot the computer. Obviously that would get old fast. UAC
should be smart enough to REMEMBER via a rules list or something
similar what you told it to do the last time. It does not, which is
what makes it such a nag and why many turn if off.

The problem with doing that is that you pretty quickly build up a huge list
of applications that you allowed once, a long time ago, and have now been
forever allowed access to administrator rights.

The point of UAC is to make life easier for those of you who like to run in
a secure environment, where users are users, and administrators are
administrators.

What "makes it such a nag" is that so many programs are written with the
assumptions of the 1900s, despite having been told for several years that
those assumptions would not hold valid for long.

Update your DVD recorder. Either get a new version from the same authors, or
try some of the newer ones available.

If you're simply burning ISO files to DVD, get ISORecorder from Alex
Feinman - http://isorecorder.alexfeinman.com/Vista.htm

If you're dragging files around in folder structures and then burning them
to DVD, you can do that from Windows Explorer.

Do either of these methods call for UAC?

Alun.
~~~~

 

[Alun Jones]

The biggest PITA about UAC is where you have to go to really understand
all of its tentacles. Start gpedit.msc then navigate to Local Comp police,
Windows settings, Security settings, local policies security options. At
the bottom are the UAC options.

Why did MS put something that they should have forseen as causing problems
(UAC) in such a remote place? My biggest complaint about Vista is how
difficult it is to find where to go to accomplish something.

Local policies are organised in a logical and hierarchical fashion.

Where else should UAC go?

Top level, because you happen to find it annoying?

That'd be an interesting hierarchy - let's search for a setting, but we've
got to figure out whether it was deemed to be hugely annoying, mildly
annoying, irritating or simply unpleasant to determine where we're going to
look.

Alun.
~~~~

 

[Alun Jones]

Case in point take one of my applications, that's not seven years old,
but just a few years old, copyrighted in 2004 written by a MAJOR
software house.

With UAC turned on it is crippled and has it's DVD burning ability
blocked. So I elevate the application giving it Administrative rights.
Does that get rid of the nag screens? No.

Then I suggest you ask this MAJOR software house why they spent 2004 writing
to specifications that were deprecated over half a decade earlier? The
documented way to write an application like that for XP was to write a
service and/or device driver to do the messy stuff that requires low-level
access to raw devices, and to communicate with a user component on the
desktop through a secure channel - RPC, named pipes, COM, etc.

Apparently, this MAJOR software house felt that they should ignore that some
companies wanted to have restricted users, and felt that they should sell to
that subset of Windows XP users who had configured their systems to only
allow administrators on the system. Every user is an administrator, so says
your DVD burner author.

For starters the application isn't unknown. I clicked run as
administrator, which you need to have permission to do, so you would
think UAC would have the smarts to remember that an ADMINISTRATOR has
given his blessing to run this application, but it doesn't remember
thus it becomes nothing but an annoying nag.

Sure the application is unknown - it's not signed, it's just an EXE that you
happened to be lured into clicking on. Could the computer verify its source?
Could you?

Well lets see. I checked run as administrator, still get nag screen.
I made sure the shortcut's security tab for this application has me as
owner checked with full permissions. Still get nag screen. I went to
program files and made sure the .exe file has me as owner will full
permissions. Still get nag screen. Ditto for going to the folder the
program is in and doing the same thing. Still get a damn nag screen
every damn time I run this application.

Understand yet why people HATE UAC?

Yeah, because they try and "fix" every damn setting but the one that's
causing the problem - the crappy pile of software that only worked by
accident in Windows XP because most users hadn't thought to run as
restricted users, because they thought this might prevent them from opening
their word processing documents.

We spent much of our time in Windows XP complaining that we had to make
exceptions for this user or that, allowing them administrative privilege to
run an application that didn't actually need administrative privilege, or
was architected in such a poor fashion that it wasn't divided into a
privileged part and a user part. You weren't complaining along with us, and
nor was the majority of the rest of the Windows XP community, and as a
result, vendors sat on their thumbs and didn't bother to develop properly.
Now that hundreds of thousands of systems are under the control of spambots
and viruses, and their original owners are crying out for someone to rescue
them from their own inability to separate user from administrator roles,
there are so many applications written to assume that user=administrator,
that it's going to hurt until those crappy applications get fixed.

The really good applications are the ones that are working on Vista without
modification, and without popping up unnecessary UAC prompts. Your problem
is not that UAC is crap; your problem is that your applications are crap,
and after years of getting away with being crappy, someone's finally
pointing at them and stating what everyone else should already have seen.
Are you finally going to acknowledge that the emperor (your DVD app) has no
clothes (is written poorly), or are you going to insist that the kid who
says the emperor is naked is at fault?

Alun.
~~~~

 

[Adam Albright]

It only worked fine under XP, because you were willing to make every user be
an administrator.

I'm the ONLY user. In that context administrator has no meaning. I'm
willing to bet that describes the vast majority of Windows users.

Those of us that have been running as a restricted user in XP for several
years have already run into this situation, and most of our 'enterprise'
tools have already been crafted to understand that they operate in a
restricted user environment unless they do something that clearly requires
administrative access.

Same response. Microsoft made two critical blunders when it forced UAC
on users.

1. It assumed all users got to be stupid, thus we'll protect them
with some comical wiz bang alert screen you can bypass anyway.

2. No realization that many, I dare say MOST Windows users are single
users that already know how to protect their system thus rendering
UAC useless and thus see UAC as both intrusive and disruptive.

Again we come full circle. The fools in Redmond think somehow if
you install Windows on you computer it somehow becomes MICROSOFT'S
computer that depending oh whim decides what you and can't do.

It anything UAC should have been made an option you install
if you want it. Not something automatically turned on you need to
learn how to turn off. Typical Microsoft backward thinking and
arrogance.

The problem with doing that is that you pretty quickly build up a huge list
of applications that you allowed once, a long time ago, and have now been
forever allowed access to administrator rights.

Perhaps, but again it wrongly assumes people are stupid. Sorry, I'm
not and neither are most Windows users. UAC is nothing by useless hand
holding that may trick the uninformed into feeling safe just like the
past idiot National Security Czar was telling people to go out and buy
rolls of duct tape and seal yourself inside a room so you'll be "safe"
from terrorist attack.

 

[Adam Albright]

Local policies are organised in a logical and hierarchical fashion.

Maybe if you're a network administrator. For Joe Average my guess was
his first response to UAC was what the $#$()%*#.

 

[Adam Albright]

Sure the application is unknown - it's not signed, it's just an EXE that you
happened to be lured into clicking on. Could the computer verify its source?
Could you?

Oh please not that excuse... Got news for you. I'm not lured into
anything. I know EXACTLY what I'm doing. When I install an application
and add a shortcut to it on my desktop I KNOW what it does and silly
me, I expect the OS to launch it, not nag about if I should or not.

I assume so do most users. People do not blindly click on exe files
just to see oh look, I wonder what happens if I click on this. That's
BS. That's so lame it doesn't deserve further comment.

Yeah, because they try and "fix" every damn setting but the one that's
causing the problem - the crappy pile of software that only worked by
accident in Windows XP because most users hadn't thought to run as
restricted users, because they thought this might prevent them from opening
their word processing documents.

Well lets see, this "crappy" pile of software happens to have been
written by Sony Corporation and is used by professionals across the
world. Maybe you've heard of them, no? Now if you want to talk crappy
software, we should get back on topic to discussing Vista.

The really good applications are the ones that are working on Vista without
modification, and without popping up unnecessary UAC prompts. Your problem
is not that UAC is crap; your problem is that your applications are crap,
and after years of getting away with being crappy, someone's finally
pointing at them and stating what everyone else should already have seen.

Hold on partner. This mindset was started by Microsoft. You do know
that don't you? Windows in the beginning stages of XP was so wide open
to attack the twits in Redmond decided to turn everything "on" which
made any pimpled face kid that spent twenty minutes on the web
learning how could discover how to plant a Trojan through one of the
thousands of ports that the nice folks at Microsoft by DESIGN left
open and were broadcasting here I am, I'm a computer, come hack me,
here's by IP address.

Are you finally going to acknowledge that the emperor (your DVD app) has no
clothes (is written poorly), or are you going to insist that the kid who
says the emperor is naked is at fault?

I'm putting the blame where it belongs. That would be Microsoft.

 

[Robert Koechl]

I'm the ONLY user. In that context administrator has no meaning. I'm
willing to bet that describes the vast majority of Windows users.

The concept of having user rights has principally nothing to do with
having multiple users on one machine. The purpose of having two classes
of users is to protect your computer during every day usage. Badly
written software can in a worst case scenario bring down your computer,
even to a degree that you have to reinstall everything, and I am not
even taking about viruses or any other malware.
If you insist on running your computer as an administrator install XP,
however, be even more sure than with Vista that you do not forget to
make regular backups.

By the way, in another post you mentioned that the software has been
written by Sony. Just because Sony has written your software and just
because it is used by many people doesn't mean that it has been
programmed well. Just my opinion...

By the way, did you try what I suggested in my other post (gpedit).
Robert

 

[Robert Koechl]

Oh please not that excuse... Got news for you. I'm not lured into
anything. I know EXACTLY what I'm doing. When I install an application
and add a shortcut to it on my desktop I KNOW what it does and silly
me, I expect the OS to launch it, not nag about if I should or not.

Wasn't it Sony who installed a root kit without the permission of the
users. So much about knowing EXACTLY what you are doing and trusting a
MAJOR software company.