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Microsoft: Vista feature designed to 'annoy users' | |
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| Time: 06:55 EST/11:55 GMT | News Source: ZDNet | Posted By: Kenneth van Surksum | ||
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A Microsoft manager has said that one of the security features in Vista was deliberately designed to "annoy users" to put pressure on third-party software makers to make their applications more secure.
David Cross, a product unit manager at Microsoft, was the group program manager in charge of designing User Account Control (UAC), which, when activated, requires people to run Vista in standard user mode rather than having administrator privileges, and offers a prompt if they try to install a program.
"The reason we put UAC into the (Vista) platform was to annoy users--I'm serious," said Cross, speaking at the RSA Conference here Thursday. "Most users had administrator privileges on previous Windows systems and most applications needed administrator privileges to install or run." | ||
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| #1 By 8556 (12.210.39.82) at 4/13/2008 11:36:17 AM |
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Toyota should start putting nails in their drivers seats so people drive less and conserve on gas. It is arrogant of any company to assume the role of parent and try to train users through forced pain, even if it works. I left my Mommy a long time ago.
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| #2 By 20505 (216.102.144.11) at 4/13/2008 12:52:02 PM |
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Bob,
I just love car analogies! What about those flashing lights for seat belts? How about the loud chiming when the door is open? I think there are dozens of these types of alarms designed to "annoy the driver" to be safe? Is this a good idea? I don't know. I'd probably turn them off if I could but on a car....... you can't. |
| #3 By 71333 (99.235.145.74) at 4/13/2008 3:08:20 PM |
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oldog, check your owners manual, there are some settings that can be turned on and off using the fuse box and/or the radio depending on the car.
not all settings can be easily changed, but some can. ATM one setting i remeber we disabled on our 99 Chevy Venture, was the horn beeping when locking or unlocking the doors from our remote control. there was a whole list of settings that can be changed. This post was edited by Tony1979 on Sunday, April 13, 2008 at 15:08. |
| #4 By 28801 (71.58.231.46) at 4/13/2008 5:16:54 PM |
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I think MS is correct here. They are trying to target software companies to code more secure software, unfortunately the user is caught in the crossfire.
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| #5 By 25030 (72.78.37.7) at 4/13/2008 5:19:00 PM |
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#3,
And turning off UAC is at least as easy as turning the key to the ACC position, pressing the gas 5 times in a 3 second span, while pressing the odometer reset button. all, MSFT is right on the money with UAC, and the broader underpinnings of Vista and user accounts. It's amazing how poorly written 90% of software really is. It hampers the ability of millions of businesses (including the one I work for) to set up limited user accounts and actually get work done. Well, at least without spending tens of thousands of additional dollars on third party sofware that may or may not work as intended and will certainly add more to the plate of already overworked IT folks. And folks wonder why there is so much "data leakage" from so many businesses. |
| #6 By 82766 (202.154.80.82) at 4/14/2008 4:10:06 AM |
| Me thinks some people actually need to read this article... the title is slightly misleading but the articles content actually explains Microsoft's reasoning for UAC. |
| #7 By 8556 (12.208.163.138) at 4/14/2008 9:44:21 AM |
| #6: I read the article. MSs's original reasoning may be been sound. The implementation, however, is equivalent to throwing bricks at their customers to get their attention when sponges would have done the job. |
| #8 By 20505 (64.60.114.101) at 4/14/2008 10:29:08 AM |
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Bob,
I agree with you. But you know, a lot of Windows users are "thick as a brick". |
| #9 By 89249 (64.207.240.90) at 4/14/2008 10:53:13 AM |
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I think its obvious that what the UAC and other new "features" have done is force software makers to fix their code (where they save configs... yadda yadda) and its forced regular users to change the way they do things in windows.
MS has forever been bitten in the "Security" arena by making anything and everything work for users and software developers. They've taken measures to force both to pay attention to the things they do wrong. Hell I know an Admin who *still* lets his users run as admin on their machines at a decently sized company. Why? Because "They'll bitch if they have to get me to install something." That mentality... WHICH IS WHY MOST WINDOWS BOXES CAN BE COMPRIMISED... is what MS is trying to get rid of. Sure its annoying and more work. But up until now nobody gave a damn about security till they're rebuilding their PC... and at that point they'd blame MS. Getting the users and non-commercial software developers on board with basic best security practices is the last big step for MS. NT4 was a solid and secure system with Competent Admins. Windows 2000, XP was a solid and secure system with Competent Users. With Windows 2000 Server/Prof they helped fix Commercial Security out of the Box. Vista is an attempt after an introduction to XP to do the same in the home. TBH I believe that MS has just decided trading getting bitched at about security for getting bitched at about the UAC is a good deal in the end for general computer security. This post was edited by MrHumpty on Monday, April 14, 2008 at 10:55. |
| #10 By 28801 (65.90.202.10) at 4/14/2008 11:49:55 AM |
| #9: Somebody at your company has got to tell these users that their machines are corporate property and they are not allowed to install non-approved software. Furthermore, all "approved" software should be pushed to users and installed automatically. |
| #11 By 8556 (12.210.39.82) at 4/14/2008 11:49:58 AM |
| MrHumpty: If UAC came up with a message that the software company didn't properly code the product and therefore it needs your permission THAT might have put some pressure on coding to Vista's needs. As UAC is implmented the user only sees the nags and, in most cases, is not entertained nor informed by them. As such there is no real pressure on software companies to write code that slides nicely into Vista. |
| #12 By 28801 (65.90.202.10) at 4/14/2008 11:51:12 AM |
| #11: That's a good point. MS should be putting the blame where it belongs. |
| #13 By 15406 (216.191.227.68) at 4/14/2008 1:33:07 PM |
| #12: Where it belongs? And where might that be? If you give me carte blanche in a large sandbox, don't come back to me later saying "You should have put the blocks here and the trucks over there." UAC should not be putting the finger on any 3rd-party apps. Most were written before Vista appeared, back in a time when there were few to no rules to follow and MS's Best Practices were mere recommendations. Rest assured that any decent company with apps that generate UAC prompts will be doing something about it. |
| #14 By 28801 (65.90.202.10) at 4/14/2008 2:29:45 PM |
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#13: You are absolutely right - MS created this problem by allowing developers to be lazy!
But come on. Vista has been out a year and a half now - numerous betas before that. Let's just round that to 3 years. 3 years and no progress in this area. Most apps have released 2 -3 major versions over that time period. I'll "Rest assured" when these 3rd-party apps stop the barrage of UAC prompts. This post was edited by rxcall on Monday, April 14, 2008 at 14:32. |
| #15 By 82766 (202.154.80.82) at 4/14/2008 6:19:15 PM |
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MrHumpty is right. Its bad programming thats causing the UAC prompts.
Microsoft doesn't want to point the finger or name the software developers, hence UAC is just a generic prompt. Thats fine by me and politically makes sense, otherwise they'd probably have another law suit on their hands for "naming and shaming" the numerous programmers. Microsoft has been shouting the "program correctly and follow the rules" message to any developer that came to their dev shows for YEARS upon YEARS. If one doesn't know that, then you're obviously not a developer, haven't been to any of Microsoft's developer days/weeks, or you haven't bothered to read any of Microsoft's programming material. Latch, the world lives in shades of grey... not black and white answers. Please catch up with the majority of us. |
| #16 By 82766 (202.154.80.82) at 4/14/2008 6:19:30 PM |
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deleting stupid double posting by the forum code... oh! bad progamming LOL! This post was edited by MyBlueRex on Monday, April 14, 2008 at 18:20. |
| #17 By 17996 (131.107.0.105) at 4/14/2008 6:39:48 PM |
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#13/#14 -- The Windows 2000 logo requirements required apps to work properly when run by limited users in order to get the logo. That was 8 years ago.
Now, I'm not saying that all apps needed to seek logo certification, but the developers should have at least looked that the requirements and thought, "maybe my apps should work for limited users too..." |
| #18 By 7826 (128.222.37.21) at 4/15/2008 10:35:53 AM |
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#17,
That will be *too much* work. LOL. I like UAC a lot for my home computers. 80% of the software I use at home work just fine without ever popup UAC prompt. I'd rather get asked everytime when some thing suspecious is going to happen to my system than without, e.g. malwares. |
| #19 By 7760 (98.173.218.183) at 4/15/2008 3:24:41 PM |
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I'm glad to see that most readers of ActiveWin are intelligent and see the reasoning behind UAC. I was afraid that the comments would be filled with ignorant whining from kids and "end users" who have no experience with the issues that prompted UAC in the first place.
I would, though, like to see Microsoft improve the performance of UAC. A large part of the annoyance for users (at least for me), I think, is that the implementation is a bit slow and jarring. It takes a good 5 seconds of a person's time every time that it pops up and the screen grey-out that it brings with it (which I imagine is part of slowdown) is in-your-face. If they could tweak UAC to be more responsive and less disruptive, that would be the best solution, IMO. I imagine that most people who don't like UAC would be a lot more accepting of it if it were a lot quicker and less disruptive. |
| #20 By 17996 (131.107.0.105) at 4/15/2008 3:31:48 PM |
| #19 -- if it takes that long to bring up the UAC dialog (switching to the secure desktop), it is probably because of a bad graphics driver. About a month ago, Windows Update offered me a newer driver for my Nvidia graphics card, and after installing it, I witnessed a similar delay with UAC prompts. I rolled back to the previous driver and UAC dialogs are nearly instantaneous again. |
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