Confirmed: UAC designed to annoy us!

[Lashiec]

Straight from Redmond comes the revelation that the much criticised UAC elevation prompt built into Vista was designed simply to annoy those users confronting it. Now you can direct all your hate towards Microsoft without any reservation

No, it's not a joke

Another take on this revelation, complete with some links analyzing why it would be a good idea.

[cranioscopical]

Didn't we all know that if Microsoft kept at it long enough they'd succeed at something related to Windows?

[app103]

So the jokes about it being "User Annoyance Control" are not really a joke after all. 

[Carol Haynes]

Yep - they certainly succeeded - I find it hard to believe that 88% leave that option enabled. If they do it is for one of two reasons:

1) They don't know how to turn it off and are heartily frustrated
2) They work in an envirnoment where the right is denied them

The first seems the most likely, the second is unlikely as so few businesses have bothered to upgrade to Vista!

Trouble is everyone criticised Windows XP for being a security problem and MS came up with the solution - make it harder for malware by making it impossible for anyone to use it without valium or a stiff drink (preferably both).

[Deozaan]

Trouble is everyone criticised Windows XP for being a security problem and MS came up with the solution - make it harder for malware by making it impossible for anyone to use it without valium or a stiff drink (preferably both).

-Carol Haynes (April 11, 2008, 06:15 PM)

Not really. What happens is the same thing that happened with Dialog Popups. They pop up so frequently that nobody even reads them anymore and just look for the OK button.

That is, the people who take the time to read error messages are probably the same people who know how to shut off UAC.

[J-Mac]

My new Vista notebook popped up so many in the first hour I had it running, I stopped everything until I found the setting and turned UAC off. Annoying is putting it mildly!

I don't see how anyone could eventually overlook those intrusions. Aaarrgghh...

Jim

[Josh]

And you see, that is the problem with most users. They get so annoyed with the feature "Out of the box" that they fail to realize those dialogs are minimal when you have been operating the computer for over a week (the post-install new software/initial setup phase). I for one have no problems with UAC. I leave it running and it has saved me on many accounts with my wife and daughter. It can be a bit tedious at times, very seldom, when it comes to deleting files in the root folder or program files folder, but that is when I write software makers for not having a proper uninstaller or installing to C:\.

[J-Mac]

Maybe, but I'm the only user of the PC and have no tolerance for such nonsense!

Jim

[nontroppo]

I'm forcing myself to keep it enabled as I'm giving the full Vista "experience" a go (I am sympathetic to MS having to do something after the horrors of XP "security"). But it remains annoying even after a couple of weeks. And coming from the hacker "Its my PC" school, I get hugely annoyed when it decides I can't manually set up my Accessories folder to keep my utilities in my Program Files directory. Weirdly though, it initially allowed me to put stuff there with no problems, only later did it decide to keep popping up requesters and deciding I'm not allowed in there. I can't be the only person who finds weird inconsistencies in what UAC considers off-bounds and when.

Carol: thank you! Valium and a stiff drink are exactly the best additions I've yet found for Vista 

[Jimdoria]

I don't run Vista, but I have to ask... are you folks who are seeing so many of these popups running as Administrator?

Because isn't that supposed to be the point? To break people of the "habit" of running in Adminstrator mode, and breaking developers of the habit of assuming their apps will run in Administrator mode?

[Carol Haynes]

When you install Vista you create a 'user' account during setup for yourself. Even though MS don't want you to run as a member of the Adminstrator group they still make your user part of the Administrator group - hence you only have to click OK when UAC arises.

It would make some sense if they actually made 'users' part of the 'users' group and forced you to enter an admin password every time UAC pops up but they don't.

UAC is a half baked, half arsed, half solution.

Its all very well saying that software writers should write for Vista but given the number of people writing software who are probably not even totally aware yet of the differences with Vista (because the geek end of the market are the ones who haven't upgraded) it seems unreasonable to expect all software writers to sort that out instantly.

OK the bigger software houses have to be aware of the issue - but in reality they will still expect admin priviledges when required and the UAC will pop up randomly as a result just making users immune to the prompt.

[cranioscopical]

UAC is a half baked, half arsed, half solution.

-Carol Haynes (April 13, 2008, 11:06 AM)

Not half!

[Lashiec]

Remember that there is TweakUAC: all the benefits of Vista's new security model and no hassle

[J-Mac]

While on the topic of Vista usage, if I may go off-topic for a moment:  Has anyone tried TweakVI, either the free or Pro (paid) version? I was just searching for the equivalent of the TwealUI powertoy for XP and I see instead a lot of search results for this TweakVI, including the fact that it is a utility download at PC World.

Is it relatively safe?

Thanks!

Jim

[Carol Haynes]

Unfortunaly MS haven't produced TweakUI for Vista (why would they  .... it's not like it hasn't been popular in previous versions!).

TweakVI was a third party repsonse. I haven't tried it so I can't comment on its safety.

I haven't looked but Ashampoo usually have good tweaking software (not free but usually cheap). I used previous versions of Ashampoos software but haven't used it in a while so I don't know if their latest release supports Vista.

[J-Mac]

Thanks Carol. I think I might give the free version a try and let you all know how it goes.

Jim