Windows Vista

[CX]

Does anyone kow how to turn off those annoying security pop-ups? Like maybe some lower security setting or something?

[Guerrilla]

Try googling disabling UAC. Should give you around 100k replies. You shouldn't really go around lowering any security settings if you can avoid it.

[Melak]

Yep. You can easily disable it in the User control whatever, but I wouldn't recommend it. There are some "tutorials" on how to make it less annoying though, maybe that's worth a try?

[Andrew March]

I just wouldn't use Vista.

[HawkMan]

you Can turn off UAC in msconfig.

but be aware that without UAC certain apps like viruse and firewalls won't be able to elevate themselves


Also, after you get past installing your usual apps you probably won't see it again anyway very much. Even for installing apps, more and more apps due to vista is now learning not to make bad installers that assume adin right(somethign that has never en required on NT based systems, that's only ecause of bad programmign of installers and application developers)

[Nutsy]

lol a bit ffing stupid then... Turning off UAC not only gets rid of the anoyences it also makes your computer less secure than XP another great reason to stick to XP :/

[Samurai]

Meh, as a Mac user, I'm used to having to verify the admin account with a password every time there are major changes made to software- The security gained is worth more than the convenience lost, generally.

[HawkMan]

Originally Posted by Nutsy

lol a bit ffing stupid then... Turning off UAC not only gets rid of the anoyences it also makes your computer less secure than XP another great reason to stick to XP :/

Well no it doesn't. UAC doesn't really provide much security for those who are more technically inclined. Issues with firewalls and AV's mostly arise because soem vendors (*cough norton/McAffee cough*) do lots of stuff they shouldn't do, stuff that step beyond what even an admin user is allowed to do, thus it won't install properly, and would usually give an error as such too.

But I haven't installed either and I do run with UAC off. But it's not something I Reccoment others to do. I may also stop running with UAC off.

It's important to remember that UAC isn't the only security measures taken with Vista, BUT it is an important one as no OS should ever be run as admin(root), and UAC is there to allow you to do stuff that requires admin without being one. As I allready said, UAC prompts will go down as more vendors start coding there software correctly to not require admin access.

But even so, you need to remember that even if an app is coded correctly, installing it to a location you don't have access, wich usually mean you shouldn't be savign stuff there or installing stuff there, will give an UAC prompt no matter since you user has no rights.

With people that upgrade and use separate folders outside of user space to install apps to this is more likely as these folder probably reatain user rights from prevous windows versions.

[CX]

Thanks for the advice everyone. I haven't had any problems running Norton's on my computer, but I'll probably just put up with the pop-ups if the only options for the built-in security are on and off.

[The_Maestro]

There are settings other than "on or off" - as someone earlier suggested do some research through Google and you'll find a tonne of information on how to configure UAC to suit your needs.

Like Hawkman said though, turning it off entirely isn't advisable unless you are tech savvy and run a tight ship. It's there to help after all.

I never got my head around why in previous versions of Windows users were generally admins unless put onto a limited account. Leaves programs free to do pretty much whatever they like. / Possibly the cause of so many of the security flaws that plagued / plague XP?

As for the poorly written software - I guess having the free reign that users-as-admins provides has let them get sloppy with coding. Hell, I'm STILL surpised how many application don't handle multi-user environments very well. Seems crazy, and a nightmare when trying to put together an image for deployment.