Prompts, prompts, and more prompts...jeez

[cquirke (MVP Windows shell/user)]

Take it back to the logical conclusion. Microsoft has waved the white
flag of surrender and now admits all prior versions of Windows were
major security risks and much of that was due to how Windows was
written including how many Microsoft developers, including those
inside Microsoft wrote applications. They further admit by deploying
UAC, they can't fix Windows to make it safer so they tossed the ball
in the user's court by flashing a simplistic warning; the UAC nag
screens.

Not really, no - IOW, the detail's different.

UAC is the consequence of trying to force a complex and inappropriate
security model derived for corporate use (NT) into consumerland, and
having the model largely ignored by users and developers alike.

Users (myself included) weren't interested in pretending to be
different employees with different job descriptions when using the
same PC that they own, and should have full access to.

The way that user accounts were initially presented to consumers in XP
"Gold" was arrogant; if you dropped rights to anything less than Admin
on an account, all settings for that account fell back to MS
duhfaults. The arrogance is expecting us to find these acceptable!

So users just carried on with one Admin user account, and as a result,
developers for this market (who were largely trasitioning to XP from
Win9x, just as wqe users were) saw no reason to bother with all this
"limited user rights" malarky either.

In short, consumerland flat out rejected MS's security model, which
meant that much of what had been designed in as "security" was simply
not operating in consumerland. All those "mitigations" like "a
malware would only have user rights, so if the user wasn't running as
admin, all malware could do would be trash your data" didn't apply


What UAC attempts to do, is bring the notional advantages of not
running as admin, to folks who are in fact ruinning as admin.

The idea is that developers can avoid user-annoying UAC prompts if
they write their software to be compatible with reduced user account
rights. The hops is that this time round, developers will do so,
given they've sat on their ass through 5 solid years of XP, so that at
the start of Vista, we're no better off that we were 5 years ago.

The real solution would be to rebuild Windows from the grown up, 100%
redo and make it secure that way.

Those are the dice that Netcape rolled with Gekko, when they decided
to drop the existing code base and start from scratch - and it nearly
killed them. The new netscape was late and buggy, and they've been
eclipsed by Firefox since. If that happens with a stand-alone web
browser, imagine how a full OS would spin out of control?

That of course would cause a huge chunk of their customers to run
away screaming since little if any current hardware or software would
work in such a totally new from the ground up radically different Windows.

Put it this way: If you think that Vista is large, slow, demanding a
high hardware specification, late to market, and beset with
compatibility issues... your approach would blow these out even more.

So Microsoft was stuck between a rock and a hard place and
picked UAC as a "solution".

Vista isn't just XP + UAC. UAC is just one particular component of
the solution set, and is actually a part of the compatibility
subsystem - which means it is destined to play a shrinking role in
daily life as the Vista platform matures.

It is a bridging technology, in other words... something like the PnP
wrapper for non-PnP ISA cards that gave PnP so much grief back in the
days of Win95's first release. Do we care whether ISA cards work with
PnP today? No. So should UAC be largely irrelevant by 2010.

All UAC really does is create the illusion of security in most situtations
because we all know 9 times out of 10 once a user, any user starts
out to do something, some nag screen he can click through isn't
going to stop him from doing what he planned to do in the first place.

They key here is "when the user starts out to do something". UAC is
there to catch things other than the user, that attempt to initiate
actions that the user had no intention of doing.

Yep, it will be Darwin take the hindmost", but no more so than "don't
open attachments even if from 'someone you know' unless certain they
are safe and a human sender really meant to send them".

I see UAC as annoying (especially when trying to clean up the AllUsers
Start Menu) but I welcome any attept to put the user in control of
processes automated by software, web sites, "content", etc. as a step
in the right direction, and a long overdue one at that.

--------------- ---- --- -- - - - -

Saws are too hard to use.
Be easier to use!

 

[Jimmy Brush]

Like everytime time you turn the water on at your bathroom sink a neon
sign would flash saying don't forget to use soap then another one that
said dry hands afterwards and oh... don't forget to hang up the towel
and another sign over the toilet reminding you to put seat down. ;-)

You still see UAC as a nag screen, as evidented by your analogy.

UAC doesn't care if you "use soap" or not. It only cares that IF YOU DECIDE
to use soap, that YOU are the one wanting to use the soap, and not some
malicious program that is using soap without your knowledge.

And I do very much hate it when malicious programs use soap without my
knowledge!

That's the biggest design flaw. Prompts get ignored if they happen for
operations you do constantly. Its like crying wolf, people just ignore
it after awhile, so it's purpose is severely muted if not outright
defeated.

Again, I disagree here, for the same reason that I mentioned earlier - when
I am not expecting a UAC prompt to happen (I did not initiate an action), I
notice it and stop it. When I do expect a UAC prompt to happen (I *did*
initiate the action), then I allow it to happen much more quickly and
easily.

This is what UAC is designed to do - to ascertain whether I started an
action or not. Nothing else. So, it works as expected, at least for me .

Vista should be smart enough to ONLY come up when something unexpected
happens.

If Vista could do this, then there would be NO POINT of prompting at all.
There would be no prompt.

The very reason that the prompt exists is because this is not possible.

The *only* thing the prompt does is determine whether you want something to
happen or not. It doesn't care (or even know) what exactly you are doing, it
is just making sure that you want it to happen.


--
- JB
Microsoft MVP - Windows Shell/User

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

 

[Jimmy Brush]

Do you know if UAC does have a learning curve -- after NN accesses it

will stop asking -- or will it go on flagging forever?

Forever.

UAC picks up on whether you are wanting a certain program to run elevated or
not. That is really the only thing it does, and it has to ask you every time
in order for this to be effective.

I ask partly because before replying to your message I thought I'd
better check the wording that comes up and it took me quite a few tries
on desktop icons that I reckoned predated VISTA and should be flagged as
non-conformist.


That's what I see as the progression that is inevitable, and so
defeating the UAC

Again, since UAC is only determining whether *YOU* initiated an
administrative action, I don't see this happening.

If I expect a prompt, it is because I initiated an action. UAC is designed
to determine if I initiated an action, and so this works out.

But, if I do NOT expect a prompt, then I did NOT intiate an action, and so
will analyze the prompt and be much more likely to click cancel.

Now, there is the possibility of a malware throwing up a UAC prompt for
itself when the user is expecting to see one for something else. This DOES
become a problem if the user stops reading UAC prompts for actions that they
expect will throw a UAC prompt, and is something that I worry about.


--
- JB
Microsoft MVP - Windows Shell/User

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

 

[Hugh Wyn Griffith]

Oh well -- Nobody's perfect <g>

 

[Hugh Wyn Griffith]

UAC doesn't care if you "use soap" or not. It only cares that IF YOU DECIDE 
to use soap, that YOU are the one wanting to use the soap, and not some 
malicious program that is using soap without your knowledge.

I'd change your analogy slightly since what you write above is what is
infuriating especially when it also comes up when VISTA prompts you to do
something and then asks you if you want to. (I know it is still playing safe)

 

[Adam Albright]

Again, I disagree here, for the same reason that I mentioned earlier - when
I am not expecting a UAC prompt to happen (I did not initiate an action), I
notice it and stop it. When I do expect a UAC prompt to happen (I *did*
initiate the action), then I allow it to happen much more quickly and
easily.

This is what UAC is designed to do - to ascertain whether I started an
action or not. Nothing else. So, it works as expected, at least for me .


If Vista could do this, then there would be NO POINT of prompting at all.
There would be no prompt.

The very reason that the prompt exists is because this is not possible.

The *only* thing the prompt does is determine whether you want something to
happen or not. It doesn't care (or even know) what exactly you are doing, it
is just making sure that you want it to happen.

Then you not only disagree with me, you also disagree with the two
principle Microsoft engineeers that wrote UAC. View their 64 minute
interview on channel 9 and Learn.

 

[Guest]

That is so true, and help from microsoft does not exist.
A horrible company, makes sense that Apple is doing so well

 

[Gus McTavish]

The point is :
The user knows what he she wants to do and the opperating system is getting
in the way.

I AM the admintistrator on my stsyem for a frioggin reason - BECAUSE I KNOW
what i want it to do.

The opperating sytem is wasting too much of my time with this and many of
the other useless new features in Vista

I am reading this to find our hos to disable it - which is the point of the
thread at at this point no one provided clear instrustions to disable it.

I guess i will find it but KERRY - your arguements are jsut taking up sapce
in this thread - why not open up a new one called "Vists works" and other
myths.

This is nto spell checked because ia m using exlplorer

 

[Swampthing]

--
Thanks from C-Swampthing.

I hate to say so MS, but your average joe, the person you are making UAC
for, is going
to do exactly what they are doing, that is turning UAC off.
Example, my mother is your basic Internet User. She just graduated from AOL
to
a normal broadband connection after me telling her for years how much better
broadband would be for her. She bought a PC that had Vista Home Premium on
it.
Suddenly dial-up became a major pain in the butt because Vista is geared
more toward a constant net connection. No problem there, I agree.
However, 2 days later she calls me up and asks me to put Windows XP back on
her computer.
When I ask her why, the response " I'm sick of the computer asking me
questions every 5 seconds. It didn't do it before. I have an anti-virus, a
firewall, and a anti-spyware program running. Why do I have to OK every
single thing I do?"
I tried explaining the benefits, but she would hear none of it. She has been
told by the Norton's and the AdAware's of the world that as long as she runs
their programs and practices safe netting that she is ok. So it was either
turn UAC off or install Windows XP for her, she was that serious.
And to be honest, I understand how she feels. In 5 years she has never had a
virus, has only had very light malware (Which SpyBot SD quickly removed),
and has nothing of hi-value on her PC for a hacker to have much interest in
other than family photo's of the dog etc.
My point being is that the average user who buys Windows HOME versions are
not going to WANT this elevated security, and as soon as they find a way to
remove it, they will.
MS should have made UAC a Business / Enterprise feature and left the
standard user and admin feature set of XP for the Home licenses of Vista.
I build PC's for a living so I know the problems that John Q Public can make
for their selves on a PC on the net with no protection. But simple education
and running the big 3 (Anti-virus, Anti-spyware and Firewalls) should be
more than enough to protect them. Now if they are stupid enough to store all
their financial information or work related trade secrets and not have the
"the big 3" then they certainly aren't going to tolerate UAC.



--
Thank you,
JD Wohlever

Techware Grafx
techware(dash)grafx(at)hotmail(dot)com

 

[David P.]

Have you tried TweakUAC. It suppresses the UAC prompts but leave the
underpinnings of the protection UAC provides intact.

 

[Chuck Walbourn [MSFT]]

Actually, UAC elevation is explicitly discouraged for Business and
Enterprise settings. Only home users should really be mixing up admin and
standard user tasks, with the majority of their daily work done as a
standard user. Businesses should have most of their users always running as
Standard Users and only have special admin accounts have admin rights.

Most of the pain of UAC goes away when applications are updated to work
correctly without demanding full admin rights (which they really do not need
99% of the time, and the 1% they do need can be done other ways). This is
obviously a long-term investment, but until UAC was on by default most
application writers would continue to ignore the inherent security risks and
not support the more secure mode (see Windows XP LUA). The Windows logo
programs are pushing vendors and applications to get updated, and over time
more of them will be. UAC elevation is still around to get old stuff to work
as needed.

There are things that can be done to the Windows shell experience to make
UAC easier, some of which were done in SP1, but mostly it's user habit and
lack of understanding that would cause a UAC elevation prompt to come up
"every 5 seconds". That's not to say teaching non-technical people technical
skills isn't difficult.

 

[Lester Stiefel]

Actually, UAC elevation is explicitly discouraged for Business and
Enterprise settings. Only home users should really be mixing up admin
and standard user tasks, with the majority of their daily work done as a
standard user. Businesses should have most of their users always running
as Standard Users and only have special admin accounts have admin rights.

Most of the pain of UAC goes away when applications are updated to work
correctly without demanding full admin rights (which they really do not
need 99% of the time, and the 1% they do need can be done other ways).
This is obviously a long-term investment, but until UAC was on by
default most application writers would continue to ignore the inherent
security risks and not support the more secure mode (see Windows XP
LUA). The Windows logo programs are pushing vendors and applications to
get updated, and over time more of them will be. UAC elevation is still
around to get old stuff to work as needed.

There are things that can be done to the Windows shell experience to
make UAC easier, some of which were done in SP1, but mostly it's user
habit and lack of understanding that would cause a UAC elevation prompt
to come up "every 5 seconds". That's not to say teaching non-technical
people technical skills isn't difficult.

My sentiments exactly. However there are still some
applications that require admin rights to register, winamp
and some burn stack software, ms office, publishers. These
then will work fine after the registration process on a
standard account.
Winamp, in addition , needs to sign the program modules, so
the nag about unsigned software will vanish.

 

[SG]

Have you tried TweakUAC. It suppresses the UAC prompts but leave the
underpinnings of the protection UAC provides intact.<<<

David,

TweakUAC is misleading and your reply isn't exactly true.
It's best described by Ronnie Vernon MS-MVP and wish I had written this :>)

Quote:
This is a fallacy! If UAC cannot notify the user that a program is trying to
gain global access to the system, then it is effectively 'disabled'. This so
called 'quite mode' setting just changes a UAC registry setting to
'automatically elevate everything without prompting'. This means that when
you click to open a file, it is 'assumed' that you already know that the
file will have unrestricted access to your computer.

The main thing that UAC does is to detect when a program or application
tries to access restricted parts of the system or registry that requires
administrator privileges. When a program does this, UAC will prompt the user
for administrative elevation. Without this prompt, UAC cannot warn the user,
which means that it is effectively disabled.

Some people will tell you that using "quiet mode" will still let IE run in
protected mode, but this just isn't true. Without the UAC prompt, a
malicious file that runs from a website can run, without restrictions, and
silently.

Another issue is that with UAC prompt disabled, some legitimate procedures
will just silently fail to work properly, with no notification, if you are
logged on with a Standard User account, since the application cannot notify
you that administrative privileges are required.

Even the developer of the TweakUAC utility includes this statement about his
product.
"if you are an experienced user and have some understanding of how to manage
your Windows settings properly, you can safely use the quiet mode of UAC."
In my opinion, if you are an experienced user, the last thing you would want
to do is turn off the UAC notification.

If you 'are' an experienced user, then you would already know how to
temporarily bypass the UAC prompt to perform just about any procedure in
Vista, such as running programs from an elevated command prompt, or using an
elevated instance of windows explorer.

The last problem I have with this so-called 'quiet mode' is that it
dissuades developers from programming their applications to run in a least
user privilege environment.
End Quote

--
All the best,
SG

Is your computer system ready for Vista?
https://winqual.microsoft.com/hcl/

Have you tried TweakUAC. It suppresses the UAC prompts but leave the
underpinnings of the protection UAC provides intact.

SNIPPED

 

[David P.]

Thanks for taking the time to post this! I will take it under advisement.

 

[AJR]

Althoug mentioned in SG's post - for "home users" the most important feature
of UAC is IE7 "Protected Mode" (Indicated lower right corner when active).

When downloading any item from the Internet which may affect system or
registry files, proteced mode creates "virtual systen and registry"
locations to first evaluate actions of downloaded items - if UAC consider
them safe then it provides access to the "real" system file locations.

 

[Andy [YaYa]]

I tell everyone that buys a Windows Vista PC that when they get the UAC
prompt that's because something is about to happen that's going to change
your system. If you are installing a program then hit Continue, but if it
comes up and you're not sure, err on the side of caution and hit cancel.

I think UAC is a huge help, espically for home users, but that's just my
opinion.