RSSMicrosoft says yes, will augment UAC in the next Win7 RC
By Scott M. Fulton, III | Published February 6, 2009, 11:50 AM
In a stunning and maybe unprecedented accedence to public opinion this morning, Microsoft has announced it will take the emotion out of its discussion, and simply do something its users are asking for.
Perhaps taking a cue from President Obama himself -- who on Wednesday evening after the failure of two of his cabinet nominees told the American public, "I screwed up" -- Microsoft's Steven Sinofsky and Jon DeVaan yesterday took a blow for the team. In a contrite and euphemism-free blog post this morning, the two senior vice presidents in charge of Windows cited excerpts from their own critics who demanded that the adjustable User Account Control dial in Windows 7 not be exempt from User Account Control itself, and then essentially responded, "Okay."
"When we started the [Engineering Windows 7] blog we were both excited and also a bit uneasy," their post began. "The excitement is obvious. The unease is because at some point we knew we would mess up. We weren't sure if we would mess up because we were blogging about a poorly designed feature or mess up because we were blogging poorly about a well-designed feature. To some it appears as though with the topic of UAC we've managed to do both."
The two things they have to improve, they jointly admitted, were the UAC feature in the next version of Windows, and the way they represent it -- or defend it -- to the public. With regard to point one, they announced that the first Release Candidate for Windows 7 will alter the privilege given to the process that enables users to change privilege levels, such that privilege cannot be elevated by something as stupid as, say, the SendKeys method from VBScript.
"We are going to deliver two changes to the Release Candidate that we'll all see. First, the UAC control panel will run in a high integrity process, which requires elevation. That was already in the works before this discussion and doing this prevents all the mechanics around SendKeys and the like from working. Second, changing the level of the UAC will also prompt for confirmation," Sinofsky and DeVaan wrote.
As for the communications problem: Yesterday, DeVaan presented an opinion that made clear his perspective that anyone who would bother trying to pry open UAC was clearly in the minority, and that the majority would rather their operating system just shut up. It was a taste of Old Microsoft, and this morning, DeVaan and Sinofsky recognized it, and spat it back out.
"We want to continue the dialog and hopefully everyone recognizes that engineering, perhaps especially engineering Windows 7, is sometimes going to be a lively discussion with a broad spectrum of viewpoints expressed," they wrote. "We don't want the discussion to stop being so lively or the viewpoints to stop being expressed, but we do want the chance to learn and to be honest about what we learned and hope for the same in return."
In fairness, the SVPs did say they would reject any arguments about proof-of-concept that essentially begin with the idea that first malware gets onto the machine. A PoC should go through the entire scenario, they wrote, because their job is to ensure that such malware cannot get onto the machine -- you can't just assume that you can automatically jump through the first hoop.
For his part, Rafael Rivera -- one of the independent bloggers whose uproar over the UAC auto-elevation discovery helped trigger this whole discussion -- has yet to issue a response as of Friday morning.
We should all stick with XP, it does such a great job of keeping everything from hijacking your registry...........
Luckily XP doesn't slow down to crawl a month after you install it either.........
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|I'm afraid your sarcasm will be lost on this bunch...
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|Forgive the confusion in my last post. I wasn't trying to "further the incorrect perception" that XP is more secure, PC_TOOL. Maybe I should've italicized the word "considered". To average user Joe, Vista makes him feel like he's vulnerable because everytime he installs an app, the UAC makes a big deal of it and he thinks he's doing something wrong...
That being said, I doubt this whole PR concept about listenting to the customer hit their heads overnight. They've been planning this customer feedback crap since the putrid reception of the UAC post Vista.
-That's just restating the obvioius. It does sound however, theres had to have been some change in the decision making process in PR at M$FT.
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|"To average user Joe, Vista makes him feel like he's vulnerable because everytime he installs an app, the UAC makes a big deal of it and he thinks he's doing something wrong..."
Really? I can't say I've seen that. I suppose it depends on the people you're dealing with. Everyone I know that knows about UAC believes it's a security tool (which is also incorrect. IMO), and that XP was less secure for not having it.
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|they need to listen to the people who do not want their e-mail sitting on some server out on the web , I speak of web based mail, the outlook express should a part of windows seven and let the individual decide if web based storage for their mail is in their best interests. Live mail is not for me and will not use it even if I have to use a separate e-mail program .
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|then don't use web based email, nobody is stopping you from remaining in the stone ages
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|What in the world does any of what you said have to do with UAC?
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|Dude... Pick a mail client then. Problem solved.
MS will not include a mail client in Win7, but will provide a like to download.love.com so you can download the new Windows Live Mail client.
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|"download.love.com "
Heh...
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|Corporations usually overcompensate to external stimuli. They are not alone in that, since the administrations of governments have been known to invade entire countries for no discernible rationale reason. But in an attempt to make UAC more "user friendly", the overdid it. I am glad they recognized it faster than said (former) administration did, who still have not figured it out.
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|WOW that's great. Now the best operating system in the world will be even better. Thanks Microsoft for listening to us
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|Hey internetworld7,
If OSX the best O/S ever, why isn't it on more than 8% of the worlds computers as opposed to Windows? I was just wondering. There has to be a reason.
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|Is it me the only one in the net that doesn't give a sh*t about UAC or it's vulnerabilities?
It's just UAC! nothing will happen if it is not there. I for one deactivate it and never have to be nagged again with stupid prompts like "r u sure you wanna install Winamp, bro?"
I know what is going on in my system and if this simple "barrier" UAC is trespassed by something nasty, the OS should be securely enough to deal with it.
Why so much noise about a cop standing by the door? It won't make any big difference.
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|It's not only you, but us computer users who know what the heck is going on are in a tiny minority (or should that be a vast minority?).
UAC protects idiots from doing idiotic things.
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|Thartist,
I can assure you, you are not the only one who could not give a flying "F" about UAC. I still for the life of GWB cannot understand the philosophy behind this hindrance. And, attended to this is all the MSFT fanbois' have never explained it, geez I doubt Billy G & 'squitos or Stevie B & his lube have any idea of what the purpose is! Should it be marketing, well they lost that, along with the credibilty of Vista.
Damned if I know!
Toolie, time for your riposte?
I'm posting this comment (should have my "Google's on perhaps), using Win7 x64 on a highly spec'd Dell XPS Studio 16, and what a hoot it is. The OS that is.
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|if you cannot understand what the purpose of UAC is, especially since its been talked about at length for a week+, there may be no hope for you and you should probably be using OS X.
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|art covered it. But thanks for thinkin' of me.
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|"We want to continue the dialog and hopefully everyone recognizes that engineering, perhaps especially engineering Windows 7, is sometimes going to be a lively discussion with a broad spectrum of viewpoints expressed," they wrote. "We don't want the discussion to stop being so lively or the viewpoints to stop being expressed, but we do want the chance to learn and to be honest about what we learned and hope for the same in return."
In my world (the one I like to play in) we call that kind of discussion and viewpoints....OpenSource.
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|Microsoft has been a company that did not need its customers input. Has it started to see if they listen people will support and buy their product? I am at the point that when XP expires looking at going to Linux. It is finally getting close to being a decent system for non programmers. If MS gets back to satisfying the customer rather than wanting people to follow blindly, I might consider Windows 7. It will depend on how well they start listening to the buyer once more.
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|I'm really excited about Windows 7. I run it on one of my laptops and it runs quite well.
Disclaimer: I also run Ubuntu 8.10 and Vista on other computers.
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|Good point
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|I reinstalled vista after trying out 7, and there was zilch difference in performance.
I think the hype over 7 is just because people are installing fresh versions, and Vista betas really really sucked compared to Vista SP1.
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|The problem with this statement is it has been proven in multiple tests that Win7 runs better on older equipment and on netbooks, Vista could barely perform on a netbook. Whereas Win7 is smooth.
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|Bah....He don't *need* no steenkin' benchmarks. ;)
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|Windows 7 - The best speed and perfomance!
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|Windows 7 - the best speed. You should find information about algorithm in http://bestalgorithm.ru
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|amen, i am glad to see MS listen directly to consumer feedback as stated directly on their blog, at least relating to one of the upcoming fixes.
props to them, this is win for everyone involved, now lets direct our attention to SKU's and pricing (when that becomes available)
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