UAC (user access control) on Vista has been the target of bad press and it has been dissed by many. But is it that bad? Should you turn it off like many are suggesting? The answer is a resounding "no" and here is why.
for one thing you are proving Bill Gates correct. It is the best thing for security that Microsoft has done. Remember how it looked like he was shifting blame onto the user when he proclaimed it was their option. Now many are taking the option to ignore security, just like Gates claimed we did before.
I was struggling with XP to do the same thing which resulted in an extremely inconvenient system. So the claims that UAC is inconvenient falls on deaf ears. Vista UAC is very convenient by my reckoning.
One of the banes of Microsoft has been that you were always logged in as administrator. I took the initiative to find another way since getting on the Internet while you are administrator is so dangerous. Microsoft's old way of doing things only made it more likely that a program that turned to the dark side (in other words, it was hacked) would be able to do things that were truly disastrous. It was hard to run XP and before as a limited user because there were things you couldn't do. Why you would want a virus to do them for you is beyond me.
Many programs at that time would only run as administrator and developers got used to that. They would store things like your options in places that a limited user shouldn't be. So because of the way XP worked, you were at a higher risk when you ran many games.
With UAC the system stops and asks your permission whenever it is about to do something dangerous. That is helpful when something is about to be done behind your back. When a program stops and asks you permission too often, it is the result of a mistake made by the developer and the authoring company needs to know about it.
So bug the software vendors and quit turning UAC off to get around a developers mistake.
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