UAC - What's the point?

[doodab]

Wow is this a serious thread or a Mick take. If it's serious then there are some extremely stupid people here.

Well we are talking windows devs...

[woohoo]

Wow is this a serious thread or a Mick take. If it's serious then there are some extremely stupid people here.

[stek]

I don't have this problem.

Me neither, Microsoft not ready for the enterprise is it?

[Doggy Styles]

I don't have this problem.

[VectraMan]

But I'm executing M$ signed code, so it adds no value whatsoever. If anything makes me want to turn UAC off because if I'm confronted by 30 or 40 warnings like that in the course of a normal day, chances are if I ever did accidentally click on some malicious icon (highly unlikely) I'd automatically click on 'Continue' as I'd be so used to doing it.

Bit like how noone bats an eyelid when a car alarm goes off.

So signed code should have full access to your system without any warning? Obvious problem there.

I only really see it when I run installers, or when I launch regedit, which because of what I do does happen quite often. Not 40 times a day though, and for most users who aren't developers, it's going to be a rare occurrence.

At least Windows doesn't demand you type in an administrator password, again, and again, and again...

[rl4engc]

To alert people to the fact that privilege elevation is occurring. Otherwise malicious code could just "go admin" and you wouldn't know.

But I'm executing M$ signed code, so it adds no value whatsoever. If anything makes me want to turn UAC off because if I'm confronted by 30 or 40 warnings like that in the course of a normal day, chances are if I ever did accidentally click on some malicious icon (highly unlikely) I'd automatically click on 'Continue' as I'd be so used to doing it.

Bit like how noone bats an eyelid when a car alarm goes off.

[doodab]

What's the point in this scenario though:
1. Be a member of local admins group
2. Be launching some program or control panel snap in or whatever
3. "You need to be a member of the local admins, or supply credentials with local admin to complete this action."
4. Be clicking on the 'Continue' button with the security shield
5. Be presented with the screen I intended to arrive at in step (2)

WTF is the point in steps 3) and 4) ?

To alert people to the fact that privilege elevation is occurring. Otherwise malicious code could just "go admin" and you wouldn't know.

[rl4engc]

If you need to run something as administrator all the time (which you shouldn't really), change its shortcut. It's not hard.

What's the point in this scenario though:
1. Be a member of local admins group
2. Be launching some program or control panel snap in or whatever
3. "You need to be a member of the local admins, or supply credentials with local admin to complete this action."
4. Be clicking on the 'Continue' button with the security shield
5. Be presented with the screen I intended to arrive at in step (2)

WTF is the point in steps 3) and 4) ?

[zoco]

If you need to run something as administrator all the time (which you shouldn't really), change its shortcut. It's not hard.

Well, I can't attach a debugger to an IIS process unless I'm running as adminstrator so I don't really have a lot of choice.

[VectraMan]

For a long time people went on and on about how much better the security was in Linux and MacOS and was crap in Windows XP. So Microsoft put in the same sort of security into Vista, and people moaned that it was now harder to do insecure things.

If you need to run something as administrator all the time (which you shouldn't really), change its shortcut. It's not hard.

[stek]

It the kind of concept that will never catch on...

In Frances do they called it 'Fenetres'?

And in Germany 'Vindows, ve haf bays of making you open..'?

[AtW]

I'm an IT Professional, I think I'd have heard of this 'Windows' - what is it?

It the kind of concept that will never catch on...

[stek]

I'm an IT Professional, I think I'd have heard of this 'Windows' - what is it?

[AtW]

It's the IQ test, just like in the Men in Black...

[zoco]

I have UAC on my laptop at home but I don't really use that in anger so up until now it hasn't really given me any woes. I'm now working at a client where the environment is Windows 7 and UAC is enabled via a group policy - no way to get rid of it because each time you log on to your machine the pesky feature has been re-enabled.

I can't begin to tell you how much hair I've pulled out over this. The classic one is forgetting to start an application via the "Run as Admin" shortcut. Visual Studio especially gives all kinds of misleading errors and I end up scratching my head for ages just to find out in the end that the problem was beacuase I didn't run it up as admin.

Really, what is the point of this useless feature?