Windows Vista Why I killed UAC

In actualiity, my advice to others is to leave UAC on.

 

I used a tweak hound to soften the blow. It's secure but I don't get all the dumb prompts signed under admin.

 

A knowledgeable member of the BBS sent me a PM with an explanatory link that said, and I'm paraphrasing, "The biggest risk you take is when you click and say 'yes, install this unknown software if you trust it' ". At that point, that program has full rights to do whatever it wants in the system files, and we depend on the intergrity and reputations of these software folks not to turn our machines into spamming botnets with missing files and extortion pop-ups. I installed some more software yesterday, and appreciated the prompt without the screen darkening and everything grinding to a halt. So far the prompt has only showed when I've initiated some action, so I suppose that's why I found it annoying. When I see it when I didn't ask for it- that's when things are going to get interesting, and I'll let you all know if it works.
Johanna

 

Exactly. Well said.

 

Whoever Pm'd you hit the nut)ty problem) on the head. Pity he/she chose not to share the thoughts here.
This was one of the points I was trying to make
quote "
It is now so easy, and well exploited on the web, as to how to circumvent this with a mouse click, that it has become a routine mouse operation in most cases. "
Anyone who has downloaded software and is about to run it, for right or wrong (mostly the latter) will automatically assume trust of the software and run it!

 

davehc- what Ii see with my kids is the social engineering to convince the magic click. I must be a boring web surfer because I never see that stuff unless I go to myspace.
Johanna

 

LOL! When I had teens I got them their own PC, gave them the OS disk, and told them, "you break it, you fix it. If you need help, ask ". Being a nosy and responsible parent, I would go in now and again to look for things that "we needed to talk about" and run a spyware/virus scan. OMG.

 

H DaveHC

I did! See post #5 and read the details!

Specifically: http://www.tweak-uac.com/uac-quiet-mode/

Mike

 

Great MIke. I did'nt guess it was maybe you.
Aka'..
Yes. I am a grandfather. One of my problems with my grandchildren (they are still quite young), was there desire to play old , simple games which refused to run on Vista. I popped out and bought them a minimum requirement PC from a net auction, for about $200. I installed XP and Vista in a dual boot and I let them get on with it. Oddly the Virus problem is rare - probably because of the nature of the games they play.
Inersting point here, relevant to this thread. My granddaghter used to hang over my shoulder in the early Beta testing days. At the age of 7 she was already familiar with the "right click, run as Administrator" procedure!!

 

I found a website once that had lists of what people born in different years had never had or never been without. The earlier years were obvious, stuff like refrigeration, TV, Space Travel, Microwaves. The more recent years are quite interesting. Cannot locate the URL right now

 

If you are an experienced user and have some understanding of how to manage your Windows settings properly, you can safely use the quiet mode of UAC.

Maybe this is what I think. I beginning to wonder if I did the right thing. I've being going strong since day 1, don't fall for the tricks, not sure if it is me or the Nortons, or the quiet mode but I've done pretty well. Thanks for the link.