It wouldn't be so bad if Windows remembered anything. Every time I start yahoo messenger, I get asked if I should run the yahoo thingy that checks for newer versions. Whether I say yes or no, it asks me again the next time. I find that grating. I cannot move things around in my Start Menu. Every time I try, I have to give permission twice; I cannot even use the keyboard enter key because it moves around between OK and Cancel. Half the time, it won't move the item anyhow. Internet Explorer balks at forwarding a web page until I turned off Protected Mode.
There is no way we can use this OS as it is now at our school; our users won't know what to do. They panic when they get pop-ups. And it is just too complicated to do anything. I don't dare tell this to our IT guy; he hates Microsoft and Windows and wants us to go to Linux as it is. It took us raising hell to stop him from converting the servers. I have been telling him that IE 7 and Vista will make our IT jobs easier, but now I will have to say reluctantly we need to stick with XP Pro for a while longer. This UAC is driving me crazy.
What you're asking for is a return to the way previous versions of Windows behaved. That is, when you're logged in as a member of the local administrators group, then anything you do also runs as local administrator -- including any malware that might happen to be on your computer.
The purpose of UAC is to let you know more about what your computer is doing and give you more control over it. In Windows Vista, when you log in as a local administrator, your actions still occur in the context of a standard user. Only when something requires administrative privileges will the UAC dialog interrupt -- and this is intentional. It's to let you know that the next thing to happen has the ability to possibly make systemwide changes to your computer. Sure, you have to give Windows permission to do such things that you initiate, but also UAC will raise the prompt if any malware is trying to do similar tasks. UAC certainly won't prevent malware from running, because you could certainly give it permission. But it does stop the silent installs of this stuff.
If you need to do a lot of work under the privileged token, then you could run an elevated command prompt or Windows Explorer. Anything you launch from inside either of these will run elevated as well, avoiding additional prompts.
See
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/windowsvista/security/uac.mspx for more information on UAC.
Steve Riley
(e-mail address removed)
I can understand that some people want and need this vast security, but I am
the only user running on a stand-alone graphics workstation, and even though
I am logged in with administrator rights, I am denied the right to install
some of my graphics software with the error "you need administrative rights,
blah blah blah". This being a contradiction in itself, I am forced, as
suggested, to turn off UAC and reboot the computer. This seems very
counter-productive for users such as myself if I have to keep rebooting to
turn on and off UAC, as, IMO if you have administrator rights, you should
have full control. Even Linux gives you full control when logged on with
admin rights. Just a suggestion for the final release.........let
administrator rights "be" administrator rights. Outside of that, Great job
on the OS to the MS Team!
