Vista UAC (User Account Control) on or off???

Vista UAC (User Account Control)....turn it off or leave it on?

  • Turn it off

    Votes: 104 51.0%

  • Leave it on

    Votes: 100 49.0%
  • Total voters
    204
TechieSooner said:
Well, all I can do is re-quote what I've said earlier:
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I know what it is and isn't and what it does. I should leave it on since I know that it does more than hold my hand but I don't. I've been running Vista as my primary OS from the time I joined the beta program (what is that, over 3 years ago now?) and have yet to be infected by a virus/rootkit/etc (knock on wood). I filed a few bug reports about how annoying it was/is (Since it was worse before). I'll wait until more of the software I use day to day is rewritten to where it doesn't need to run as admin before I re-enabled UAC.
 
In a post 9/11 America, most people live in a state of constant fear and anxiety. This thread is evidence of that.

You UAC-lovers are simply paranoid. I know what I am doing, and I don't like being questioned when I tell my computer to do something, so I turn it off. It's as simple as that. I don't want to worry about adminitrative rights or any of that crap like they force down our throats at work.

I have been running Windows since 3.11. I've never had a problem, and I don't expect to. UAC is just a needless, irritiating kludge, and I don't want it. Thank goodness MS was smart enough to give us the option to turn it off.
 
I used to think it was the devil till I really took time to get used to it. Granted this was after SP1 and a few other updates and I find it frankly nice. I use solely macs/linux at work so the Vista popup is nothing important really. Like many others have said, it prevents rootkits. Unlike the Mac type of UAC, it actually to some degree prevents people from modifying system prefs. Alot of things in Mac OSX can be modified without needing a password or confirmation in the system prefs. Vista doesn't allow this.

@spectrum

I assume you don't work with Macs or linux?
 
Spectrum17 said:
In a post 9/11 America, most people live in a state of constant fear and anxiety. This thread is evidence of that.

You UAC-lovers are simply paranoid. I know what I am doing, and I don't like being questioned when I tell my computer to do something, so I turn it off. It's as simple as that. I don't want to worry about adminitrative rights or any of that crap like they force down our throats at work.

I have been running Windows since 3.11. I've never had a problem, and I don't expect to. UAC is just a needless, irritiating kludge, and I don't want it. Thank goodness MS was smart enough to give us the option to turn it off.
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rofl trust somebody to bring up 9/11 in regards to UAC.
 
Spectrum17 said:
In a post 9/11 America, most people live in a state of constant fear and anxiety. This thread is evidence of that.
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:rolleyes:
That's why many folks on here are from other areas... say, Austrailia, England, etc, etc, etc???

It's a problem with computers- not with post-9/11 America. There are too many dang morons using computers, putting everyone else at risk.

Identity theft is one of the top crimes anymore, and UAC goes a long ways to protecting your machine.

Y
Spectrum17 said:
I know what I am doing, and I don't like being questioned when I tell my computer to do something, so I turn it off.
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Once more: UAC DOES NOT FREAKING HAND-HOLD!!!!!
PERIOD.

"Are you sure you want to do this, it's unadvised" is a ton different than "This program is requesting administrative access."
It's an alert, is all it is.
 
Does UAC pop up when AVG is auto-updating? I need to know this if I am going to turn it back on.
 
Avira has the highest marks presently on AV-Comparitives, by a fairly large margin even over NOD32. Of course they're comparing the "Premium" edition but, I can't believe the free one would be that much worse. But their actual client software leaves a lot to be desired, as it seems to have memory leaks and is pretty resource hungry. Even if it's free and good, that sometimes might make people choose NOD32 anyway, still the lightest and fastest.
 
I leave mine on for protection, as stated above posts once my machine sets up it doesn't kick in. The only program I use now that turns it on is riva tuner, and thats because its an unsigned sys driver.
 
I haven't read the whole thread but there is also a silent mode besides on and off.

Since there is no user friendly way to switch UAC to silent mode in Vista, there's a free utility that makes it easy: TweakUAC
 
zz2 said:
I haven't read the whole thread but there is also a silent mode besides on and off.

Since there is no user friendly way to switch UAC to silent mode in Vista, there's a free utility that makes it easy: TweakUAC
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That completely negates the whole purpose of UAC. Might as well SHUT IT OFF... Of course the only way (as someone else suggested) this would be helpful is if you want it off- but want it left on for other users.
 
Joe Average said:
Avira has the highest marks presently on AV-Comparitives, by a fairly large margin even over NOD32. Of course they're comparing the "Premium" edition but, I can't believe the free one would be that much worse. But their actual client software leaves a lot to be desired, as it seems to have memory leaks and is pretty resource hungry. Even if it's free and good, that sometimes might make people choose NOD32 anyway, still the lightest and fastest.
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I would take Avira over AVG any day. I was stupid enough to buy 2 year licenses for our servers and updated to version 8 when it came out. I don't know how many times I have come in to work to find a module has crashed, requiring a reboot of the server to get it going again. And the false positives are ridiculous. As for NOD32, false positives are the only thing it seems to catch. I booted up yesterday and it started deleting all of my Driver Cleaner .NET files. Yet it is more than happy to bend over and let a Vundo infection in. No self protection at all. I still hold a 3 user license for it. I hope to see it recapture its former glory, but I am starting to think it's not going to happen. :(

As for UAC, I have also run Windows since the days of 3.1, and have had no real problems either. But make no mistake, those days are gone. Virus and malware writers used to be hobbyists and geeks. Professional hackers are now being paid to write stuff so they can steal data from you. It's your choice and it still won't save you from everything (the DNS exploits and the flash clipboard exploit come to mind) but I would much rather get the opportunity to click a "cancel" button when something tries to take over my machine than have it just load itself as an admin user because I didn't want to be bothered. ;)
 
From my two days of experience with Windows Vista, UAC has been nothing more than an annoying popup. I'm pretty tight with regards to keeping my machine clean, and I'll only change stuff that I intend to change. As a power user, I don't like Windows asking me if I really want to do something.
 
noobman said:
From my two days of experience with Windows Vista, UAC has been nothing more than an annoying popup. I'm pretty tight with regards to keeping my machine clean, and I'll only change stuff that I intend to change. As a power user, I don't like Windows asking me if I really want to do something.
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"Lead them to water... yet they refuse to drink... or even get the point..."

Bleh. It's not asking your permission, really. It's notifying you that something wants to do something in the background and halting it from doing so until you say "Yeah, ok, thanks for telling me, it's cool" more or less. It's not really a permission thing by design, but a notification tool that's just making sure YOU are aware something is going on in the background.

Would be nice to see people finally discern the difference between the asking for permission thing and notifying the user that something is going on that would have executed without the user ever being aware in the first place.

This is like sweeping a dirt floor...
 
Spectrum17 said:
In a post 9/11 America, most people live in a state of constant fear and anxiety. This thread is evidence of that.
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What...in....the....hell......????
Spectrum17 said:
I don't like being questioned when I tell my computer to do something, so I turn it off. It's as simple as that.
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Wow. Macs and Linux systems have done this for a long long time, and Microsoft finally implements it in Windows, and you'd say something like this? If you don't want to use it, then don't...it is your computer. But, don't put it down for what it does, and pretend Microsoft is trying to baby you.
 
Joe Average said:
"Lead them to water... yet they refuse to drink... or even get the point..."

Bleh. It's not asking your permission, really. It's notifying you that something wants to do something in the background and halting it from doing so until you say "Yeah, ok, thanks for telling me, it's cool" more or less. It's not really a permission thing by design, but a notification tool that's just making sure YOU are aware something is going on in the background.

Would be nice to see people finally discern the difference between the asking for permission thing and notifying the user that something is going on that would have executed without the user ever being aware in the first place.

This is like sweeping a dirt floor...
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Same shit. Asking for permission, or notifying me of a potential problem (which is not really one, but Bill Gates thought I should know), is still annoying. It is in the same vein as "Are you REALLY sure you want to delete this file?" YES, Goddamnit, I told you to delete it, so do it. "Are you REALLY sure you want to empty the 'Junk e-mail folder?" YES, Goddamnit, I told you to do it, so do it. It's just one more annoying prtect-me-from-myself Windows bloatware "feature" that I can do without. If you want to protect me, just do it. Don't ask me a bunch of stupid questions, and don't keep me from doing what I want to do with my computer (I may not own Windows, but I'd like to ask least be able to use the other software I have licensed and hardware I have bought without interruption).

And no, I don't use Linux or the Mac OS. I don't feel any need to, and if they are this irritating, I don't think I ever will.

Besides, how is this "notification" feature going to protect me from ANYTHING if I get so sick of the popups that I just mindlessly click through them without reading them (or being able to understand them, some of the prompts, like those from my firewall, are cryptic)? How is that in any way useful?
 
Spectrum17 said:
Same shit. Asking for permission, or notifying me of a potential problem (which is not really one, but Bill Gates thought I should know), is still annoying.
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Has nothing to do with Bill Gates.
UAC protects one thing: System level changes. If whatever you are using is requiring system level changes- take up the beef with the software manufacturer.

And no, I don't use Linux or the Mac OS. I don't feel any need to, and if they are this irritating, I don't think I ever will.
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So in other words- you'll complain no matter what.
Go write your own OS and leave the rest of us alone then.


Besides, how is this "notification" feature going to protect me from ANYTHING if I get so sick of the popups that I just mindlessly click through them without reading them (or being able to understand them, some of the prompts, like those from my firewall, are cryptic)? How is that in any way useful?
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You've got to be kidding... This thing says such simple things like "Windows Update" or "Device Manager"... how exactly is that hard to understand?

I swear some users should just have their computers taken away by the government on the basis they put the rest of us at risk ;)
 
I am trying to figure out how people get so many UAC prompts in the first place. I do turn it off during initial setup of Vista, and then turn it on once drivers and my must have apps are all installed. It only pops up when I am installing software or mucking around with system settings after that. I don't even see the pop up every day.

Well I did see it today, it poped up while I was surfing the web. I clicked "No" and moved on. Don't know what it was trying to do and don't really care. If I had had UAC off or was using Xp, whatever it was would prolly be running on my pc right now with out me knowing, til tomorrow morning's scheduled virus/malware scan anyway.
 
i turn it off. it nags me. part of my use of a computer is that i like to fuck with it, see what does what, and tweak the hell out of it. i can fix it if its broke, so uac provides no security for me whatsoever.

im going to click accept everytime anyways, why click at all?
 
I agree with GORANKAR, although Ocean did say how he gets his, unless everyone on this board likes to go in the control panel and click on things with the little shield icon next to them or something, there aren't really very many UAC prompts to be had.

In my personal opinion the fuss isn't really about "I know what I'm doing," it's more about "I don't like changes in my OS." Even though many will say that Unix and Mac OS X are far less obtrusive with their security measures, UAC is somewhat similar and Windows has never had this sort of thing. Now it does, and everyone who was used to Windows not having anything like UAC is annoyed.
 
At first I was very VERY annoyed with UAC and had turned it off on both my laptop and main desktop rig. However after doing a lot of builds lately with Vista, I'm finding it a lot less annoying, and find that with time it rarely asks you. I may just go ahead and turn it back on.
 
I have it off. Used computers all my life and never been hacked..

No reason it should ask me for my password every other mouse click I make :rolleyes:
 
Tylerdurdened said:
I have it off. Used computers all my life and never been hacked..

No reason it should ask me for my password every other mouse click I make :rolleyes:
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Uhmmm... yeah I get the attempted humor but but but... geez people get over the "every other mouse click I make" bandwagon, will ya...
 
If you're on a standard account it does demand an Administrator password, but who does THAT (at least on Vista at any rate)?
 
Tylerdurdened said:
I have it off. Used computers all my life and never been hacked..

No reason it should ask me for my password every other mouse click I make :rolleyes:
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i never got into a car accident, suppose I should cancel my car insurance, and while i'm on it, i havent been sick in over a year, perhaps medical insurance isnt needed either...


As for it popping up all the time... what in the bloody hell do you run or do that it pops up all the time?

Sovereign said:
If you're on a standard account it does demand an Administrator password, but who does THAT (at least on Vista at any rate)?
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I do, I never run as root. Not in Windows, not in OS X, not in Linux...
 
d3c1us said:
I do, I never run as root. Not in Windows, not in OS X, not in Linux...
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The UAC setting without credentials is basically the same thing as how sudo works in Ubuntu. So being logged in in windows with an admin account (not Administrator) is pretty much the same thing as using a standard login in the admin group in ubuntu.
 
d3c1us said:
i never got into a car accident, suppose I should cancel my car insurance, and while i'm on it, i havent been sick in over a year, perhaps medical insurance isnt needed either...
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Yep!

I've been driving on the roads for 36 years or so, and never driven onto anything. Perhaps I should go rip the seat belts out of my vehicles, because it's a nuisance clipping and unclipping them!


I could do that, for sure, but I couldn't reasonably argue that I was doing anything other than being an idiot. Same deal applies for system level protection in an OS, far as I'm concerned. Disable it and there's no way you can justifiably argue that doing so is an exercise in responsible behaviour.
 
d3c1us said:
i never got into a car accident, suppose I should cancel my car insurance, and while i'm on it, i havent been sick in over a year, perhaps medical insurance isnt needed either....
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Bad examples. Car insurance is required by law, and besides the penalty (from getting sued after you cause an accident) is too astronomical to risk not having it. Likewise, with medical costs spiraling out of control, you risk lifetime bankruptcy from even one serious incident which happens when you don't have medical insurance. The only thing you risk by disabling UAC is having to spend a few hours restoring your system (and I believe I am correct in assuming that as anal as you are about "protection," you must keep regular, comprehensive backups, so restoring your system should be a snap).

To answer a question (where are all these UAC prompts coming from?) with a question, namely, Where are all of these virii, trojans, rootkits, etc. that threaten your systems so much coming from? I mean, I surf as much as the next guy (including some highly questionable corners of the web), but I never have a problem. What's the issue?
 
Spectrum17 said:
Bad examples. Car insurance is required by law, and besides the penalty (from getting sued after you cause an accident) is too astronomical to risk not having it. Likewise, with medical costs spiraling out of control, you risk lifetime bankruptcy from even one serious incident which happens when you don't have medical insurance. The only thing you risk by disabling UAC is having to spend a few hours restoring your system (and I believe I am correct in assuming that as anal as you are about "protection," you must keep regular, comprehensive backups, so restoring your system should be a snap).

To answer a question (where are all these UAC prompts coming from?) with a question, namely, Where are all of these virii, trojans, rootkits, etc. that threaten your systems so much coming from? I mean, I surf as much as the next guy (including some highly questionable corners of the web), but I never have a problem. What's the issue?
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I wasn't implying that contracting some nasties on your computer was as sever as no insurance, I was trying to imply that some things are better to have than not because you "don't need them".

Regular comprehensive backups, sure the hell do. Time Capsule for my Macs, and Acronis for my Windows machines, but a lot of the nasties floating around arent script kiddy shit of the past. They can be on your machine, phoning home without you even knowing for weeks, months, years. But to each his own, my network is secure.

To be completely honest, I do not know where all these nasties come from. I've had anti-malware running on my machines for as long as I can remember, and really never once came across anything to bad. Even in my "warez" and dumpster porn days. But I'd rather be safe than sorry.

And again what I meant by all the UAC prompts is, once I get my machines up and running, everything installed and tweaked, I only see a UAC prompt when I'm.... updating a piece of software or driver. It doesn't just randomly pop up to make sure I'm alive...
 
Spectrum17 said:
Bad examples. Car insurance is required by law, and besides the penalty (from getting sued after you cause an accident) is too astronomical to risk not having it. Likewise, with medical costs spiraling out of control, you risk lifetime bankruptcy from even one serious incident which happens when you don't have medical insurance. The only thing you risk by disabling UAC is having to spend a few hours restoring your system (and I believe I am correct in assuming that as anal as you are about "protection," you must keep regular, comprehensive backups, so restoring your system should be a snap).
Click to expand...

As mentioned earlier in the thread (or in a different one recently, maybe?) there are nowadays professional hackers employed to write code which helps harvest information to be used for identity theft and other nefarious purposes. Cop something like that and it's a helluva bigger impact than just the need for a reformat!

To answer a question (where are all these UAC prompts coming from?) with a question, namely, Where are all of these virii, trojans, rootkits, etc. that threaten your systems so much coming from? I mean, I surf as much as the next guy (including some highly questionable corners of the web), but I never have a problem. What's the issue?
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It's not a matter of being inundated with attacks. Something like what's mentioned above only has to happen once in a lifetime to be a catastrophic event.


And that's the major 'problem' with much (most?) of the anti-UAC sentiment expressed. Just like your comment, much of it contains unsupportable generalised claims, which imply that disabling the feature is justifiable or sensible practice in a general sense. It's not. Whilst it might be no problem for a machine which us never net-connected, or us used basically as a playtoy which gets regularly and frequently wiped and reimaged, for any machine whatsoever in everyday use and used for tasks which include personal activity and personal details it simply makes no sense whatsoever to have the feature available but disabled.
 
uac does not equal insurance for me, i have never once had something other than my own actions trigger it. and because of that i have never once said no to uac. the prompt has zero value to me. my firewall, and my antivirus are the equivilent of insurance to me.

but my av is off, i just use it to scan suspicious things.
 
Until you discover months later you've had a rootkit the whole time that your AV software couldn't/didn't/won't "root out" so... or something else to the same effect. You cannot protect yourself or your machine from things you and it don't know about or have direct firsthand experience with - and even the experience doesn't always help either.

Bleh. This is getting really old...
 
Catweazle said:
As mentioned earlier in the thread (or in a different one recently, maybe?) there are nowadays professional hackers employed to write code which helps harvest information to be used for identity theft and other nefarious purposes. Cop something like that and it's a helluva bigger impact than just the need for a reformat!
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QFT.
Not all malware is in-your-face. The well-written malware, you won't even know about. It slips in, collects some PayPal, Bank logon, Quickbooks, or whatever other financial information you've got- transmits it out the door- and the damage is done without you ever knowing about it.


Ocean said:
i have never once had something other than my own actions trigger it. and because of that i have never once said no to uac.
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Umm... that right there is the EXACT reason why you should continue using it. That way, when/if someday something generates a prompt without you doing anything: it raises a red flag. This is the whole purpose of UAC.

Joe Average said:
Bleh. This is getting really old...
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QFT on that one too.
Getting tired of all these self-proclaimed "power users" giving advice to regular joes to turn it off since it's a bother as well.
 
I've never had anything but my own actions cause UAC to come up...yet. But if something funny comes up, well, I'll certainly notice! As I said before, people are unhappy because the Windows security model (if you can call how Windows ran before a "security" model) has been fundamentally changed. Who moved my cheese? Who moved my f-cking cheese?!?!?!
 
TechieSooner said:
QFT.
Umm... that right there is the EXACT reason why you should continue using it. That way, when/if someday something generates a prompt without you doing anything: it raises a red flag. This is the whole purpose of UAC.
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then make uac pop up a message in the taskbar, or write something specific and useful to a log instead of just telling me that everything in my computer is protected except my documents.

a prompt will not solve the issue. ive had 100% false positives and 0% positive.

its great for people who just use their computer. im not one of those people.
 
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