Vista UAC. Just one more unthinking click
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I've been using Vista for a while now and I realised that I now just just block out all the "are you sure you want to..." prompts that Windows So Much Funtm to use. They are a 2 second speed hump in the course of my work and serve no purpose other that to confirm, subconsiously, that I've double-clicked on something. I remember walking a staff member through one of our systems that had a double safety catch if you tried to delete something. The pop-up "do you want to delete this" was clicked, then the following page with the big, bold red "are you sure you want to delete?" was about to be clicked when I stepped in and asked "Do you really want to delete that?". There was a bit of a panic when the staff member realised what was about to happen but it was a great illustration of how warning messages and pop-up alarms are now simply being blocked out and ignored. I guess I'm just a little frustrated that the solutions provided (untrusted applications, UAC etc) is so clunky and so inconvenient. It's a "make it a bad experience 99.99% of the time to save that .01% chance of a problem". Actually even that's being optimistic because I run a virus scanner and have not once had a virus or trojan get onto my system.
cheers, Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
IMO the really great benefit of UAC is that is prevents malware installers from running themselves. The trouble is, normal users won't grok what that means. All they see is UAC popping up when they run an installer, so UAC has to be marketed in those terms. (PS: I love that "grok" is in Firefox's spelling checker's dictionary)
--Mike-- Visual C++ MVP :cool: LINKS~! Ericahist | PimpFish | CP SearchBar v3.0 | C++ Forum FAQ Ford, what's this fish doing in my ear?
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IMO the really great benefit of UAC is that is prevents malware installers from running themselves. The trouble is, normal users won't grok what that means. All they see is UAC popping up when they run an installer, so UAC has to be marketed in those terms. (PS: I love that "grok" is in Firefox's spelling checker's dictionary)
--Mike-- Visual C++ MVP :cool: LINKS~! Ericahist | PimpFish | CP SearchBar v3.0 | C++ Forum FAQ Ford, what's this fish doing in my ear?
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Indeed! I find it hard to believe that the UAC prompt (and the accompanying "eclipse" of the rest of the screen) actually made it off the drawing board. The usability is absolutely horrendous. I find most of the Apple advertisements smarmy, but the UAC one actually gave me a bit of a chuckle. I don't know for sure, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the designer of the UAC was the same creative genius that gave us Clippy. In fact, instead of the boring UAC dialog, I can almost picture that fool paper-clip popping up: "It looks like you're trying to run that "Visual Studio 2005" application that you run everyday at about this time of the morning. Would you like to continue?" (and then the paperclip's eyebrows do that Groucho Marx quick up-down maneuver) ;P Warren
Want robust software? Use the new Vista Kernel Transaction Manager[^]
www.IconsReview.com[^] Huge list of stock icon collections (both free and commercial)
Warren Stevens wrote:
(and then the paperclip's eyebrows do that Groucho Marx quick up-down maneuver)
That would actually be cool....
We are a big screwed up dysfunctional psychotic happy family - some more screwed up, others more happy, but everybody's psychotic joint venture definition of CP
My first real C# project | Linkify!|FoldWithUs! | sighist -
Warren Stevens wrote:
(and then the paperclip's eyebrows do that Groucho Marx quick up-down maneuver)
That would actually be cool....
We are a big screwed up dysfunctional psychotic happy family - some more screwed up, others more happy, but everybody's psychotic joint venture definition of CP
My first real C# project | Linkify!|FoldWithUs! | sighistpeterchen wrote:
That would actually be cool....
That's a definition of "cool" with which I am not familiar. ;P
Anna :rose: Linting the day away :cool: Anna's Place | Tears and Laughter "If mushy peas are the food of the devil, the stotty cake is the frisbee of God"
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Indeed! I find it hard to believe that the UAC prompt (and the accompanying "eclipse" of the rest of the screen) actually made it off the drawing board. The usability is absolutely horrendous. I find most of the Apple advertisements smarmy, but the UAC one actually gave me a bit of a chuckle. I don't know for sure, but I have a sneaking suspicion that the designer of the UAC was the same creative genius that gave us Clippy. In fact, instead of the boring UAC dialog, I can almost picture that fool paper-clip popping up: "It looks like you're trying to run that "Visual Studio 2005" application that you run everyday at about this time of the morning. Would you like to continue?" (and then the paperclip's eyebrows do that Groucho Marx quick up-down maneuver) ;P Warren
Want robust software? Use the new Vista Kernel Transaction Manager[^]
www.IconsReview.com[^] Huge list of stock icon collections (both free and commercial)
Warren Stevens wrote:
"It looks like you're trying to run that "Visual Studio 2005" application that you run everyday at about this time of the morning. Would you like to continue?"
That's the fault of the Visual Studio team. I believe their Vista patch adds a manifest which demands Visual Studio is run as an administrator. Windows therefore pops a UAC dialog every time you launch it. In fact, you often - indeed mostly - don't need VS to run as admin. You need admin rights to a) debug processes not running as your current user account, b) debug processes that are themselves elevated, and c) write COM registration data to the per-machine parts of the registry. I suppose you can add d) write files into protected parts of the file system, which web developers might need to do (I don't know). I can tell you from experience that VS2005 works absolutely fine as a standard user on Windows XP, apart from the issues above (apart from (b) which doesn't apply). I think that to fix this, you can go into the Visual Studio install directory, edit
devenv.exe.manifestand change therequestedExecutionLeveltoasInvoker, rather thanrequireAdministratororhighestAvailable(I don't know which one is set). Then, when you actually need to do one of the tasks which requires more rights, right-click the VS icon and choose 'Run As Administrator'. Basically they've used the elevation mechanism as an extremely blunt instrument to get around UAC, rather than actually refining the product to only request elevation when needed.Stability. What an interesting concept. -- Chris Maunder
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Warren Stevens wrote:
"It looks like you're trying to run that "Visual Studio 2005" application that you run everyday at about this time of the morning. Would you like to continue?"
That's the fault of the Visual Studio team. I believe their Vista patch adds a manifest which demands Visual Studio is run as an administrator. Windows therefore pops a UAC dialog every time you launch it. In fact, you often - indeed mostly - don't need VS to run as admin. You need admin rights to a) debug processes not running as your current user account, b) debug processes that are themselves elevated, and c) write COM registration data to the per-machine parts of the registry. I suppose you can add d) write files into protected parts of the file system, which web developers might need to do (I don't know). I can tell you from experience that VS2005 works absolutely fine as a standard user on Windows XP, apart from the issues above (apart from (b) which doesn't apply). I think that to fix this, you can go into the Visual Studio install directory, edit
devenv.exe.manifestand change therequestedExecutionLeveltoasInvoker, rather thanrequireAdministratororhighestAvailable(I don't know which one is set). Then, when you actually need to do one of the tasks which requires more rights, right-click the VS icon and choose 'Run As Administrator'. Basically they've used the elevation mechanism as an extremely blunt instrument to get around UAC, rather than actually refining the product to only request elevation when needed.Stability. What an interesting concept. -- Chris Maunder
Mike Dimmick wrote:
you can go into the Visual Studio install directory, edit devenv.exe.manifest
That sounds like a risky thing to do. Unless something is seriously broken, I never play around with a Visual Studio install. I really thought that if there was a single complex (i.e. something that really pushes the boundaries of the system) application that should work on Vista, it should be Visual Studio (if they Visual Studio developers can't get it to play nice with UAC, then I doubt anyone else will have a hope). FWIW, I was at a .NET conference on the weekend (sponsored by Microsoft), and one of the main speakers (talking about WCF) suggested running VS2005 in Administrator mode.
Want robust software? Use the new Vista Kernel Transaction Manager[^]
www.IconsReview.com[^] Huge list of stock icon collections (both free and commercial)
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UAC is a must.
_________________________ "When the superior man refrains from acting, his force is felt for a thousand li." Sun Tzu
> UAC is a must. Yes. But! Why can't UAC remember which applications have been previously allowed (saving their signatures to detect alterations)? I personally turned off UAC as quickly as I could find the little check box. I'm not totally out to lunch however, I do run NAV. I would like to rely on UAC since it can, in theory, stop most virus infections. However, the design of UAC does not take social engineering into account and Microsoft has indeed shot itself in the foot by making UAC so annoying.
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> UAC is a must. Yes. But! Why can't UAC remember which applications have been previously allowed (saving their signatures to detect alterations)? I personally turned off UAC as quickly as I could find the little check box. I'm not totally out to lunch however, I do run NAV. I would like to rely on UAC since it can, in theory, stop most virus infections. However, the design of UAC does not take social engineering into account and Microsoft has indeed shot itself in the foot by making UAC so annoying.
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UAC is a must.
_________________________ "When the superior man refrains from acting, his force is felt for a thousand li." Sun Tzu
I watch with interest whilst I remain with XP pro. I admit also some degree of smugness. I just KNEW it wouldn't be worthwhile moving over to Vista until 2008. In fact, I don't think I ever will. Instead I shall raise incredibly lazy cats whose brains can do my computing work using Fortran. Because I'm FAR MORE CONTRARY than anyone else ever, and I refuse to stay on topic. And I have severe nicotine withdrawal. And mouth ulcers. And cats keep shitting in my garden, digging up my azaleas.
'All there really is, is: virtue and vice' ...Black Crowes
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I've been using Vista for a while now and I realised that I now just just block out all the "are you sure you want to..." prompts that Windows So Much Funtm to use. They are a 2 second speed hump in the course of my work and serve no purpose other that to confirm, subconsiously, that I've double-clicked on something. I remember walking a staff member through one of our systems that had a double safety catch if you tried to delete something. The pop-up "do you want to delete this" was clicked, then the following page with the big, bold red "are you sure you want to delete?" was about to be clicked when I stepped in and asked "Do you really want to delete that?". There was a bit of a panic when the staff member realised what was about to happen but it was a great illustration of how warning messages and pop-up alarms are now simply being blocked out and ignored. I guess I'm just a little frustrated that the solutions provided (untrusted applications, UAC etc) is so clunky and so inconvenient. It's a "make it a bad experience 99.99% of the time to save that .01% chance of a problem". Actually even that's being optimistic because I run a virus scanner and have not once had a virus or trojan get onto my system.
cheers, Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
This is going to… desensitize every Windows Vista user to warning messages, and therefore, Microsoft would have made the next generation of computer users much more accident-prone.
ROFLOLMFAO