I don't use Windows Vista right now, but I got a book from the library that was by Microsoft and it seems that UAC is quite cool.
Let's take a look at the glossary, shall we?
QUOTE("Windows Vista: Step by Step --Glossary")
User Account Control - A Windows Vista security feature that requires specific acknowledgment and an administrator password when accessing settings that could disrupt your computer or affect its users.
It sounds good, after all, it is a Microsoft book. Now let's take a look at what Wikipedia says:
QUOTE("http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_Account_Control")
User Account Control (UAC) is a technology and security infrastructure introduced with Microsoft's Windows Vista operating system. It aims to improve the security of Windows by limiting applications to standard user privileges until an administrator authorizes an increase in privilege level. In this way, only applications that the user trusts receive higher privileges, and malware is kept from receiving the privileges necessary to wreak havoc on the operating system.
In other words, with UAC a user may have administrator privileges, but an application that the user runs does not unless it is approved beforehand or the user explicitly authorizes it to have higher privileges.
UAC will usually prompt the user for additional privileges automatically, but the user can also right-click a program and click "Run as administrator".
So therefore, it helps keep the computer safe by letting the user explicitly permit software to run that "could disrupt your computer or affect its users".
Here is an interesting passage I found in Wikipedia also:
There are a number of configurable UAC settings. It is possible to:[8]
QUOTE("http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_Account_Control#Features")
* Require administrators to re-enter their password for heightened security
* Require the user to press Ctrl+Alt+Del as part of the authentication process for heightened security
* Disable Admin Approval Mode (UAC prompts for administrators) entirely
This means that if you are an administrator, or the only user on the computer, then you can disable the prompt entirely! Personally, I wouldn't do that, I think it is cool. But if it annoys you so much, you can do that.
QUOTE("http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_Account_Control#Criticism")
Criticism
There have been complaints that UAC notifications slow down various tasks on the computer such as the initial installation of software onto Windows Vista.[12] It is possible to turn off UAC while installing software, and reenable it at a later time.[13] However, this is not recommended, since as File & Registry Virtualization is only active when UAC is turned on, user settings and configuration files may be installed to a different place (a system directory rather than a user-specific directory) if UAC is switched off than they would be otherwise.[14]
Speaking of UAC, Yankee Group analyst Andrew Jaquith stated that "while the new security system shows promise, it is far too chatty and annoying."[15] However, this statement was made over six months before Vista was actually released (even before Beta 2 was released). By the time Windows Vista was released in November 2006, Microsoft had drastically reduced the number of operating system tasks that triggered UAC prompts, and added file and registry virtualization to reduce the number of legacy applications that trigger UAC prompts.
I think that the benefits outweigh the criticism.
To disable UAC for administrators, you can use Group Policy Editor to do that. But I don't think Administrators have to enter a password anyways, so why disable UAC?
I may be completely wrong about this, I don't use Vista, yet. But it seems pretty logical to me right now.
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