by Ross M. Greenberg
If you put two computer users in a room you get three opinions about Vista. But there’s one thing they all have in common: Everybody hates User Account Control – that annoying box that pops up every time you try to do something useful. It can be turned off easily, but I don’t recommend it. There really are “bad guys” out there getting their jollies by zapping your hard disk. You are fully backed up, right?
Leave UAC turned on.
For those diehards who insist: There are three “documented” methods for turning UAC on or off. Each requires a reboot of the system in order for the transition to be effective. Toggling UAC can be easily accomplished in the Control Panel/User Accounts, in Group/Local policy, or with MS Config – or even with the Registry Editor. Each method has its own pros and cons. The most control, for example, is certainly through the registry editor, but that is also the most hazardous and dangerous to use. With great power comes great responsibility.
There are a variety of third-party utilities available for getting far more granular control of the UAC than Microsoft provides, all with the usual caveats and warnings about the potential dire consequences of running unsupported software. Heed them well: UAC does serve a legitimate purpose and circumventing that for the sake of saving a few mouse clicks is not worth risking your data. (In My Humble Opinion, of course, and Your Mileage May Vary.)
For me, my testing of the Windows 7 Beta shows a soon-to-be supported granular control of the UAC. I can wait. And I make backups every night, by the way.
Ross M. Greenberg is a software developer, writer, and a webpage designer — in that order. He’s been using Vista since forever, initially as an MSDN user and has dutifully upgraded it as it matured. It is currently his favorite operating system; starting off with CP/M through DOS and its various incarnations and Windows with its various incarnations. If you are new to Vista he promises it will grow on you. He loves being on the cutting edge …”