Linux news

2007 07 12

Windows Vista's UAC Failed to Achieve Goal

Learning to Live with UAC

Like most veteran Windows users, I balked when I first encountered the User Account Control (UAC) mechanism in the latter BETAs of Vista. The constant interruption of nearly every system or maintenance related task was unbearable. Finally, after one particularly frustrating bout of "move the file/yes I really want to move the file/please let me move the file/sorry, do dice buddy," I did what many early Vista users did: I turned UAC off. Hint: For those of you who haven't figured it out yet, the option to disable UAC is buried under the User Accounts sub-section of the Control Panel. Ah, the bliss of no UAC! I could now do whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted! It was just like Windows XP, but with a cooler UI!

http://s5h.net/u?zb6be
Related: Researcher Reveals 2-Step Vista UAC Hack

A Web application developer has uncovered a two-step process (PDF) for exploiting Windows Vista's User Account Control, essentially by having a Trojan piggyback on what could be al egitimate download.

http://s5h.net/u?zf4b38
Vista User Account Control and the Linux Superuser

So, when I was researching the way to determine the shadow storage size on Windows Vista for my February 23rd entry, I wasn't too surprised when I got an error message about needing to elevate my privilege after I tried to run vssadmin from a standard command shell. What a Linux system would have done right there would be to ask me for the administrator password.

http://s5h.net/u?z576d
Vista's UAC needs an overhaul. Ideas?

It seems like everyone, other than possibly Microsoft's Vista team itself, seems to believe that the User Account Control (UAC) in Vista already needs an overhaul.

http://s5h.net/u?ze26d
Windows Vista: Secure Or Just Frustrating?

The problem with Vista's security implementation is that lots of warning dialog boxes don't provide security. Users get frustrated and eventually stop reading them altogether. They think of them as annoyances, an extra click required to get a feature to work. Is Windows Vista really more secure than the operating systems that preceded it, or simply more frustrating? Since Microsoft left us with no choice but to buy a PC with Vista pre-installed, we're inevitably stuck with it. Let the frustration begin.

http://s5h.net/u?zf4ae


"Oh, excuse me, is this supposed be a joke? We all remember all those Microsoft's statements about how serious Microsoft is about security in Vista and how all those new cool security features like UAC or Protected Mode IE will improve the world's security. And now we hear what?

http://s5h.net/u?ze192
Vista's Faux Security

At the end of the new Apple ad, the security guard finally asks the hapless PC: "You are coming to a sad realization. Cancel or allow?" Unfortunately, after conditioning the world to click "allow," all Microsoft will have accomplished is to pass the buck to the hapless PC user, trying to make the user responsible for anything bad that happens because they ultimately chose to allow it. While that may allow Microsoft?s security engineers to sleep at night, the rest of us won't rest as easy until Vista's holes are plugged with something more substantial than a dialog box.

http://s5h.net/u?z18d9
Vista's UAC security is hopeless, says Symantec

A key security feature of Windows Vista, User Account Control (UAC) is still nearly unusable, Symantec has said. At a press presentation last week, Symantec vice president of engineering Rowan Trollope said Symantec's customers had found the feature so "chatty", that it was a burden on users, potentially creating new help-desk calls.

http://s5h.net/u?z1858
Windows Vista set to overwhelm helpdesks

The Windows Vista features that will most benefit end users are likely to cause a flood of calls to enterprise IT help desks, it was claimed today. SupportSoft predicted that one of the main areas in which end-users are likely to experience problems will be dealing with Vista's security features.

http://s5h.net/u?z30b
Windows Forces you to use UAC to Add a Printer

Another bug that got past the extensive RTM testing process? Nope. It's a bug that came into existence during the finalization process. This bug wasn't there in RC2, but it's most definitely there now. All we can say is, hopefully this gets patched before SP6.

http://s5h.net/u?z26ce
Vista: Slow and Dangerous

Most of the time I spent testing Vista was with sluggish pre-release versions. I expected things to improve when I ran the finished software on PCs configured for the new Windows version. I now realize that Vista really is slow unless you throw a lot of hardware at it. Microsoft claims it will run with 512 megabytes of memory. I had recommended a minimum of a gigabyte, but 2 GB is more like it if you want snappy performance. [...] The most exasperating thing about Vista, though, is the security feature called User Account Control. UAC, satirized in an Apple ad as a security guy who constantly interrupts a conversation, appears as a pop-up asking permission before Windows...

http://s5h.net/u?z4be1
Your expense = my revenue

"Windows is a money making machine for everyone involved" - but describing it as really a kind of work for welfare scheme in which everyone wins -except the customer to whom it's a cost, and the national economy for which it's a productivity sink.

http://s5h.net/u?z7799
Analyst slams Vista's 'backward' UI

Windows Vista is a step back in usability, researcher claims

http://s5h.net/u?z64e4
Windows Vista Tip: Run as administrator

This will make every admin operation prompt you for credentials while it is great if you do a lot of remote operations it can become tedious if you are performing a lot of local admin operations.

http://s5h.net/u?zf2e7

http://s5h.net/u?z5758
Microsoft: Turn off Vista's UAC to fix problems

I've been fairly critical of the new User Access Control (UAC) in Windows Vista, as I feel it is too secure to be usable, which will probably result in many users and corporations turning off and losing out on what could have been Vista?s best feature. [...] He recommends turning UAC back on after fixing the problem, but when users need to do this more than a couple of times to get a usable system, they will just leave it turned off.

http://s5h.net/u?z9c1c
'Vista's Account Protection: One Click and It's Gone'

One of Vista's big security features is 'User Account Protection' (or 'User Account Control') which pops up and asks for user authentication before software can make any administrative changes to the system. But the TweakVista utility can turn off UAP in one click...

http://s5h.net/u?z9ec2
The Truth About User Privileges

Has the time finally come for the least-privilege user -- you know, setting your Windows client machines to run without system administrator rights? [...] Today, some Windows applications just won't run properly on a desktop without administrative rights. "It's a dirty little secret people sweep under the rug because they're not able to do much about the problem. A lot of applications and pieces of environments won't work if users aren't given admin rights," says Steve Kleynhans, vice president for Gartner's client platforms group. "If you can get applications to function with lower rights, in a lot of cases it hampers the user experience."

http://s5h.net/u?z4c69
Opinion: 'Vista Casts A Pall On PC Gaming'

In the interest of full disclosure I should make it clear that in a previous life time I was responsible for all of Microsoft's OS strategy for games and media, from writing the original DirectX development plan, to managing Microsoft?s relationships with the industries leading game developers. 10 years after launching DirectX 1.0, I still have strong opinions and feelings about how to make Windows a great game platform, and probably feel a stronger sense of pique than most when I see Microsoft making careless or callous mistakes that impact game developers.

http://s5h.net/u?zd3dd