Vista newbie

iviv

An option along those lines is TweakUAC. Rather than completely disabling the UAC, this puts it into quiet mode, which is no less secure, but has less of the annoying prompts.

[Deleted User]

iviv wrote: »

An option along those lines is TweakUAC. Rather than completely disabling the UAC, this puts it into quiet mode, which is no less secure, but has less of the annoying prompts.

How can it be as secure when it automatically grants elevation privilages to any application that requests them without informing you?

iviv

I don't pretend to know the details, but all the tech sites I frequent recommend it. Personally, I turned UAC off as soon as I installed vista, as I trust myself not to download any viruses (Plus I run an AV program to catch anything that somehow slips through). The page I linked to about it being no less secure seems to make sense to me.

[Deleted User]

iviv wrote: »

I don't pretend to know the details, but all the tech sites I frequent recommend it. Personally, I turned UAC off as soon as I installed vista, as I trust myself not to download any viruses (Plus I run an AV program to catch anything that somehow slips through). The page I linked to about it being no less secure seems to make sense to me.

It's no doubt going to be biased if it's from the developers own page, and reading what has been said it assumes that there is no Anti Virus software installed on the computer that would detect and prevent the spread of a virus upon execution of the file. That's not a task for UAC..

iviv

Thats true, but if you have downloaded a virus/suspicious file, then you've already gone through one set of prompts to see if you want to do it. A second set won't make it much more secure.

[Deleted User]

iviv wrote: »

Thats true, but if you have downloaded a virus/suspicious file, then you've already gone through one set of prompts to see if you want to do it. A second set won't make it much more secure.

UAC isn't in place to combat viruses, it is to prevent applications executing with higher elevation privilages than they need to in order to run therefore minimising risks of code exploits that could allow malicious programs to hijack applications and have total access to the entire system.

Having UAC in quiet mode will automatically grant elevation to any program, whether trusted or not, to the higher level. Therefore, by the very way it operates, quiet mode is not as secure as the default.

iviv

Eh, I'm going to back out of this one, as I'm just going on recommendations, not as a user.

Back to the OP, Vista SP1 apparently reduces the number of UAC prompts as well, so I'd download that if you haven't already, you should be able to get it through microsoft update.

asininity

be_alright wrote: »

Count me in that group then eh..

It's pretty irresponsible to recommend that UAC be turned off just because it is annoying. On a brand new install you are going to have a lot of prompts to deal with because you are making system wide changes etc, but after a week or so they really do reduce and become second nature to deal with and it allows you to be more aware of what is actually happening on your machine, especially for the home users.

You're completely right, if its irresponsible to recommend common sense over stupidity. Fact is its so annoying after a while people will just click OK just to get rid of it.

UAC is for people who are stupid enough to follow sat navs onto railway tracks, because it says so.

If you've got a decent security suite and some basic common sense you don't need UAC, if you answer emails from africa about lottery wins you never entered or you install applications because the popup says you need to you'll ignore it anyway.

UAC is a copout from m$ to try and "beef" up the security of something that has more holes in it than a sponge.

If you want it keep it but theres real no advantage to having it if you have a modern security suite on you system that does the same thing better.

[Deleted User]

Once again, UAC does not stop Viruses or Spyware. It was not designed to do that.

asininity

I know thats why its pointless.