Vista’s UAC – hated and misunderstood

04.13.08 Posted in Hints and Tips by Mathew

I just read a very interesting post over at Ars Technica that talks about one of the new features found in Windows Vista – User Account Control.

Apparently this is the number one reason people hate Windows Vista. First of all, I find this very very funny. Security experts and pundits have for years been laughing at Microsoft because the Mac OS has had this kind of security for ages. Now that Microsoft put it into Windows, everyone is complaining. I guess they can’t win.

But even more interesting, is Microsoft’s thinking on the subject. Apparently, Microsoft engineers figured if they annoyed the users enough when software demanded higher privileges to do something, it would push those developers to write their code better so as to not trip UAC into annoying their users.

All in all, I agree with them. Windows software has been poorly written for a long time, and its long overdue for developers to follow the rules and do things properly. And it’s also the case that UAC does offer a much higher level of protection against malware and other internet nasties.

But the really funny thing, is that UAC can be easily turned off. So if it really does annoy you that much, just turn it off already!