man, i disabled that "feature" loooooong ago...

on a related note, i pulled the trigger on the SP1 install this weekend... no apparent problems, and file copying has most definitely increased in speed

any advice on which services to turn off to lower the memory overhead?
chris | Email | Homepage | 03.24.08 - 3:28 pm | #

Enh - I've been living with Vista on one of my machines at work since RC1; and I haven't found UAC that annoying. Admittedly, I don't use it for anything other than supporting cusotmers and the odd Office program...

Isn't one of the major security recommendations to never run with admin privs?
Ian Argent | Email | Homepage | 03.24.08 - 6:47 pm | #

Yes.

This is pretty standard UNIX practice ... only the foolhardy do everything as root.

Install the crap you need once, and then demote yourself to mere user.
Kristopher | Email | Homepage | 03.24.08 - 6:49 pm | #

Vista essentially forces you to demote once done with the admin stuff.
Ian Argent | Email | Homepage | 03.24.08 - 8:19 pm | #

It's similar. The difference is how it's applied. In a *nix situation, you can just su or sudo to root and do a bevy of various administrative things, then never have to mess with it for months. I've got a couple CentOS boxes that I probably haven't used the root access in over a year, and a PuppyLinux box I've never had to go into root mode for since install.

In Vista, you just get an "Allow" or "Deny" box when you run a task that would affect multiple users, and while the Allow or Deny propagates downward (open cmd as Admin and any programs it runs will be in Admin mode), it doesn't propagate in time, so doing a lot of different UAC actions at once makes it a little irritating. This isn't helped by the UAC dialog also greying out and putting a 'stop' on every program running at the same time, even audio or some network options, making it seem like a big deal.

Vista's also got a pretty vague concept of what is and isn't worth needing Admin mode for. While it's not as bad as it used to be in RC1, you'll still get UAC prompts pretty often, especially if you move a lot of files within :/Windows, :/Program Files, or have a lot of programs which require download and write access (MMORPGs or mapped network drivers, for example), you'll get buzzed by it more often than just setup and driver installation.

That said, I personally like the feature. Although it does need some improvements (:/Program Files/ is never going to stop being a program dumping ground), it's a good option to have for less savvy users, and it does tend to catch stuff.
gattsuru | Email | Homepage | 03.24.08 - 8:58 pm | #

Also remember, UAC helps stop (or at least makes the user think about) the sony rootkit and the digital picture frame viruses. Sure, you could disable autorun (and I'm quite sure most of us have); but not everyone does.

And how many of you have turned off the ActiveX warning bar? UAC is the same thing, applied to the OS instead of the browser.
Ian Argent | Email | Homepage | 03.25.08 - 6:06 am | #

oddly enough, after my SP1 upgrade, i can no longer access the task manager for some reason... have no idea why...
chris | Email | Homepage | 03.25.08 - 2:58 pm | #