I’ve found the complete lack of subtly or common sense with Microsoft’s approach to Win 7 User Account Control Settings disppointing. In theory it’s a fantastic idea. Evil virus tries to change your pc and you get notified before it happens. It’s a shame Microsoft didn’t allow for trusted programs. At least, I haven’t found a trust feature in Win 7.
I would have no problems with Account Control Settings if it was on a program by program basis. From what I’ve seen, changing Account Control Settings is Global for your account and every other account on your computer. I just checked my pc and all three logins were effected when I turned off Account Control.
I’m not too worried about shutting up the Nag Screens. My sanity can’t put up with them. They will literally force me out of my chair and down the hall swearing like a sailor. Turning them off is simply returning me to XP mode security. Traditionally going all the way back to Windows for Workgroups 3.1 every version of Windows assumed the User had full update rights. NT domains and Active Directory on corporate and education networks were the first to limit rights. If Win 7 can’t set up Account Control on a trust basis for each program then I don’t plan on using it.
Perhaps you’re more tolerant? Maybe the nag screens don’t bug you?
What setting do you use for User Account Control? The default?
See Poll for options.
I’ve used Win 7 for 6 six weeks. Migrated from XP. I quickly learned to click properties, and check Admin Privs for most older software I install. I got burned with programs like QuickPar that installed without getting it’s file associations right. Or Cyberlink DVD Player 6 that endlessly demands registration because Win-doze is too stupid to let it update it’s reg data file. I ran into several programs that refused to register until Admin rights were on. I’ve found that turning on Admin Priv is a must with most software written more than three years ago.
Consider this… you never actually know if the program is reporting back errors when it tries to write files and update. Error checking is often unpredictable. Especially with Shareware software. You could be corrupting your system and never know it. :dubious: I speak from personal programming experience. I wrote error checking based on what I expected to go wrong. The sun falling out of the sky and dipping into the ocean errors (a one in a trillion chance) were to remote to screw with. Your boss gives you a deadline and your darn well better have that program written, tested, and installed into production by the deadline. There’s a limit to how much error code checking you can write. I wrote more error checking than most guys in our shop. Mainly because I’m a hopeless anal and overworked perfectionist. I’m the idiot that worked past 5 cleaning up the white space formatting in my code. I wanted it to look nice. Being a perfectionist sucks some times.
This seems really stupid. I use SuRun in Windows XP, and my account just acts like a limited user account, with the exception that it detects if the manifest asks for administrator rights and will prompt me if so. I can even tweak what an LUA can do.
How is an all or nothing solution better than that?
The only thing that would make it better is if it could also handle .dlls or even just full command lines, so I didn’t have to have rundll.exe always on the exception list. Unfortunately, it is abandonware, and nobody seems to be creating software that does the exact same thing in as simple a manner.
It really doesn’t sound like Windows 7 security is actually better than what I have.
When I upgraded to Vista, I got annoyed with UAC rather quickly, so I disabled it. When I upgraded to Windows 7, I didn’t even give UAC a chance, I turned it off immediately.
I suppose UAC might be a good thing for people who don’t really know computers, or are overly paranoid; but I have enough know-how and common sense to avoid viruses or malware, so I view UAC as unnecessary.
Put me in the paranoid category, then. UAC on Vista stopped rootkits dead. I still have it enabled on Windows 7. I too know to avoid malware. I don’t use Internet Explorer or Outlook / Outlook Express / Mail. I have a firewall and anti-virus. But there’s always new malware. If an application keeps complaining, it’s usually a simple matter to set the right permissions, either in the file system or in the registry.
The annoying thing for me about UAC on Vista was that it took so long. It doesn’t on Windows 7.
FWIW, UAC is a lot less intrusive in Windows 7. I had it disabled on Vista but left it on the default settings when I installed Windows 7. I now rarely get the pop-up, usually only when using older software that won’t work properly without running it as the administrator.
what the hell are you doing that you’re seeing so many UAC prompts? I’ve left UAC to its default setting, and I only ever see prompts when I’m installing a program, or a program is running its auto-update.
which is shit. turning off UAC also disables a bunch of other stuff like Internet Explorer’s protected mode and virtualization for older programs (stupid ones which try to save user settings in \Program Files).
I’m the idiot that worked past 5 cleaning up the white space formatting in my code. I wanted it to look nice. Being a perfectionist sucks some times.