I never understood while creating a folder in Program Files would cause a popup. Or then trying to delete it... or maybe just move it. ARGH... no thank you. Rather than create software to allow people to do whatever they want, perhaps more information about WHAT to open and what NOT to open is more helpful. For starters having SHOW File extension as ON by default would help. If your favorite movie clip is MOVIE.MOV.VBS ... DUH!

UAC should be made mandatory otherwise most people will disable it as soon as possible - and viruses and other malware will take over their PCs.

Unix users used to work with the least privileges for the last thirty years and everyone seems to be comfortable with such a workflow. I don't say that viruses cannot exist in unix-like OSes (in fact I'm sure they will be ubiquitous as soon as Linux/MacOS will grab more than ten percents of the market), but at least with such a policy you have less chances of unintentionally screwing up your OS.

Everyone was comfortable? You mean the 2% of the world that ran Unix - most of them being technical engineers. Hmm - I wonder why they were OK but Windows users weren't happy with UAC - surely this is an apples to apples comparison - so to speak.

UAC was and continues to be a terrible workaround for a zillion of broken Windows software whose authors haven't ever taken into consideration that people might want to feel safe instead of letting every piece of garbage^W software do whatever it wants *after* installation.

However I still wonder how Windows secures itself from malware which can press buttons and click mouse on its own.

In this case no amount of nag screens and alerts can help you since a virus will do the work in a blink. The same applies to ... Unix and it shows that truly secure general purpose OSes are a distant future. TPM and TC - that's what comes to my mind but these solutions are very limited.

However I still wonder how Windows secures itself from malware which can press buttons and click mouse on its own.

This is where the current defaults and the Win7 defaults come in, and why lowering it to allow "you" to make changes is absurd.

As it stands, those changes would prompt a UAC pop-up. With the SS above, my guess is that the malware would be allowed to do whatever the hell it wants, effectively making UAC useless.

Exactly......

Typical comment from a Unix wacko. Your assumption is that ALL Windows users are idiots. I'll accept your comments with less pigeon holing.

"However I still wonder how Windows secures itself from malware which can press buttons and click mouse on its own."

That attack vector was acknowledged and addressed with Secure Desktop (when the screen dims for a UAC prompt). Programs cannot respond to these dialogs.

WOW -they had to wait until it was out for TWO years until the 2x4 hit them in the head and they realized UAC is annoying? I figured that out 20 seconds after my PC was formatted with Vista during beta testing. Am I the only person during beta testing that said it was annoying?

Will it take them 2 more years to figure out Vista is SLOW?

I figured that out 20 seconds after my PC was formatted with Vista during beta testing.

That likely won't change. Initial configuration of the OS will very likely continue to generate a series of prompts simply because of the changes being made to the system.

These prompts disappear almost completely, however, once the configuration is complete.

Am I the only person during beta testing that said it was annoying?

Thankfully, no. It woke up a lot of devs, which lead to many apps being rewritten so as *not* to install to/access protected folders or require insecure workspace (admin privileges to run).

Will it take them 2 more years to figure out Vista is SLOW?

*yawn*

SSDD... Vista is fast. Faster than XP according to many benchmarks. It depends greatly on your system. If it's integrated video or an outdated videocard, you're hosed. If you have under 2GB of system RAM (even worse if you then throw integrated video on top of that), you're hosed. You need a system that can actually *run* Vista before making such a general statement.

My system at home is a far cry from "Top of the Line". 4400+ CPU, 2GB of RAM, ATi 2900 (512MB). Vista flies on that thing. You can build a new system that outperforms mine by leaps and bounds for less than $300.

Please link to some of these alleged benchmarks that show Vista as being faster. I have yet to read a single one that wasn't bought and paid for by Microsoft.

You are entitled to your benchmarks. I ran tests on 8 systems, two of each being identical. I ran boot up, shut down, file copies to the same hard drive, a second hard drive, a windows 2003 R2 x64 server (after hours, no activities running at the time, shutdown, video editing and yes even gaming, application opening, web browsing and shutdown. There were some areas where there were no signficant differences but over all, XP performed better and was also preferred by all of the clients in a seperate test.

The systems were all running Vista SP1 with all patches and current drivers direct from the manufacturers. Each had at least a 120GB hard drive with at least half free- all fresh full formats and installs. I was still running XP SP2 when I ran the tests against Vista SP1 but I can assure you SP3 for XP runs faster than SP2 for XP.

The hardware varied from P4 HT 3 GHz units with 1 GIG of RAM to Core 2, 3.0 GHz systems with 2 GIGs of ram. All video cards had 256 to 512MB of memory - no on board systems, with cards ranging from 8600 to 9800 and a couple of ATI x1950s.

I believe my tests were fair and frankly I was motivated financially to perform an upgrade to Vista to for several clients, however my reputation is far too important to waste it pushing an OS that offers no discernable benefits to the client. I will not roll out Vista to any of my clients although I will consider Windows 7 if after testing it offers clear benefits. I will admit Vista has encouraged me to brush up on my OSX skills as more and more of my clients are just fed up with MS and are purchasing alternative OSs. I don't think they'd have such a negative attitude towards Vista if MS didn't force you to get Vista - thank goodness manufacturers finally stood up and so NO and offered XP again for a while although MS insists that the xp licenses count as new Vista sales so they can make outrageous claims about how many copies of Vista they have sold and that it is being "adopted" by so many - just like an unwanted baby left on your doorstep - not actively sought out but dumped on you.

I'm not saying OSX is better - I only run it on 1 of my 4 personal systems but I will admit it boots much faster, seems to open apps quickly but I have a very hard time dealing with the lack of right click for options and controls. I like easy access to controls - something MS forgot with Vista - what a huge pain in the butt it is to get to network properties now - why the heck did MS add steps to getting to simple things like video settings and network settings?

I run Windows 2008 on one of my PCs and have all of the bells and whistles turned on so it acts much like Vista accept it actually runs quickly. The code is essentially the same but Vista is a major cluster job in my opinion.

If you want to get decent performance from Vista I would highly recommend turning off UAC and adjusting your indexing settings so it doesn't "do so much" in the background as many fanboys claim makes Vista great. If it was creating a cure for cancer great but frankly I don't see what it is doing in the background that makes it any better as an OS than XP as what I WANT it to do in the FOREGROUND is far more important to me than whatever MS thinks is more important to me.

*LAUGHING*

You almost had me until:

If you want to get decent performance from Vista I would highly recommend turning off UAC and adjusting your indexing settings so it doesn't "do so much" in the background as many fanboys claim makes Vista great.

UAC does nothing to performance, and since WDS 4.0, indexing doesn't even *run* while other applications are using the PC.

Ten for effort, but you blew it at the end.

I would, but you'd tell me they were bought and paid for by Microsoft, wouldn't you?

...of course you would.

I've posted them in previous threads.

"UAC does nothing to performance, and since WDS 4.0, indexing doesn't even *run* while other applications are using the PC."

This may be true, but it doesn't stop indexing quick enough once an application is being used again (once my cup of tea is finished).

I'd seriously consider uninstalling and re-installing WDS4 is you're experiencing a long delay waiting for indexing to stop (if you don't mind it losing the index).

Mine hasn't indexed in a while (other than the odd file or app that gets occasionally modified or added) since it's long finished building it's initial index, but it hasn't taken more than a second or two to release I/O to whatever task I happen to start working on.

There was *one* time, actually, now that I think about it. I had been playing WoW and had gone out, leaving the game and system up. When I came back and brought the game back up from the taskbar it took nearly 20 seconds for it to come fully back to life (at which point the game promptly disconnected me due to extreme latency issues). That was annoying, but the only time it's happened. Not sure exactly what it was doing there...

I consider anything that interrupts me from doing what I want to do a performance issue. While UAC doesn't slow down hard drive performance, it does stop processes you may want to occur and you have to click on a response for it to consider. Just my opinion but I can see where some might not consider UAC a performance problem - I see it as useless but that is just a matter of opinion as you clearly have yours.

Some people tend to run several applications at once. UAC prompts in such cases provide valid reasons for headbanging and cussing.

Vista definitely has serious resource management problems with some modern hardware setups. It's not just the matter of hardware drivers, it's a matter of controversial system architecture decisions - if the shoe does not fit your foot, so to speak, you're up the garbage creek without a paddle. The popular example - putting network hardware in the same class of I/O devices as multimedia peripherials.

I could list several other severe problems one can run into if supporting sufficiently heterogenic host base. The point is that basic architecture of Vista appears to be superior to Xp, its handling of niche cases, hardware or software exceptions, or simply providing consistent user experience - these aspects make the system unreliable or unfit or subpar when compared to Windows Xp/2000.

Regards,
Ruemere

PS. Given my personal experiences with my own workstation (as opposed to my enterprise level knowledge), Vista x64 is a fail. It's fast, does its job (when significantly customized), but it also insulting by dumbing down everything by default, tries to do nasty/unnecessary stuff behind my back and fails at usability, fails with regard to providing integrated information... Very mixed bag of goods, overall.

"I consider anything that interrupts me from doing what I want to do a performance issue."

I thought you were talking about benchmarks? Did UAC interrupt the benchmarks, or were you not running benchmark software?

"I don't think they'd have such a negative attitude towards Vista if MS didn't force you to get Vista - thank goodness manufacturers finally stood up and so NO and offered XP again for a while..."

Just for the record, manufacturers did the SAME THING for Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000. Heck as late as 2005 you could order a Dell Optiplex GX280 with a Windows 2000 downgrade license on it.

It will ship be default with the highest, strictest setting (the current default) and the controls will be buried in the user applet of the control panel.

People will think they "fixed" it anyway because by the time Win7 is released, the majority of programs will be UAC friendly (read: coded so that they do not modify system settings or install to/access protected folders).

Anyone lowering the settings of UAC completely and totally misses the point. Example: In the SS above, it would be *very* easy for "programs" to masquerade as "you", thus making that setting completely useless.

UAC's intent *was* to annoy the hell out of people. It was designed to force devs to code their apps properly as most users would *not* know how to disable UAC. It's working.

"It's working."

...bloody slowly.

Release cycles are a b****. If the programs you are having trouble with haven't already done so, they have plans to do so in the works.

Well...either that, or they have chosen to tilt at windmills...and will pay in loss of customers.

What PC_Tool said. This is another case of blaming the one bringing the problem to light, rather than blaming the authors of the problem.

Unfortunately, I agree with Paul Skinner's reply as well.

It'll take another year yet, possibly to Win7 before the majority of applications have released a UAC friendly version.

I can't even begin to imagine how well Windows will work once all the apps we use are coded in a way that is both more secure *and* less intrusive to the OS. Installation issues, uninstall issues, compatibility issues; all pretty much going to be a thing of the past...

Yes, within a year all hackers will code their viruses, spyway, malware etc to be much more UAC friendly - completely bypassing UAC.

For anyone who supports the average joe who concentrates on Sales, Accounting or running their household - you know UAC serves no purpose. People will click yes to everything once they find out the app they want to run doesn't run until they say yes.

Unless hackers would be kind enough to label their malware - "THIS IS A VIRUS CLICK NO" it won't serve to much purpose for UAC.

Sorry bud. Your troll-hair is showing in the post above. I'm afraid I really can't be bothered to care what you think anymore, because apparently ... you can't.

If they've *not* launched an app and it pops up, anyone who *isn't* surprised is either dead, or brain-dead.

"Unless hackers would be kind enough to label their malware - "THIS IS A VIRUS CLICK NO" it won't serve to much purpose for UAC. "

Some would still click YES. I have had at least one customer tell me they paid the extortionists just to make the crap go away. It didn't of course.

At least they're listening.

I for one have quietly been amazed by Microsoft's change in approach since around the time of the release of IE7.

There have been some truly brilliant people join Microsoft since around that time, and it is those people I am intrigued to see if they have influence or not.

To see if they act on the changes I perceive them to have made it shall take until at least Windows 7 is released.