UAC - What's the point?

[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?

[AtW]

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

[stek]

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

[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]

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..'?

[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.

[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.

[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) ?

[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]

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.