User:Dmkst/User Account Control

CAUTION
	This article triggers UAC prompts.
	Article author cannot be held responsible for
	subsequent mayhem caused by reading this article

Notice: You are about to view content that requires elevation. Please accept the following prompt to continue:

Well, now that we have that out of the way, we can continue with this article.

User Account Control, as explained in the prompt you just accepted above, is a feature introduced to Windows Vista that helps maintain healthy levels of insanity in its users. Windows Vista users will frequently encounter these seemingly unnecessary and very annoying prompts whenever the user attempts to perform any task that requires elevation.

Elevation?

A typical UAC dialog that appears upon launching downloaded porn viewers

In Windows Vista, all users, by default, run with n00b permissions. Even if the user is an Administrator, all programs and features will run with the n00b permissions to avoid possible attacks on the Windows Subsystem. This has broken compatibility with many programs which expect to be able to run with superuser privileges, such as Microsoft Porn Explorer.

A task or program will require privilege elevation to Superuser permission level whenever it needs to do something that only Superusers should be able to perform. Thus, User Account Control effectively locks down the system so that all users will be able to perform their basic daily tasks, without opening up the system to attacks. Only when a user may need to do something that could effectively break the system will Vista ask for elevation confirmation,

Things that will trigger UAC prompts

Doing any of the following things will trigger a UAC prompt:
[[Image:uac2.png]]

Okay now we can continue.

• Launching a dangerous program
• Running programs that were downloaded from the Interwebs
• Clicking the mouse button
• Viewing things on the screen
• Using the photo viewing program, Windows Photo Gallery
• Changing settings
• Installing programs
• Using Microsoft Word
• Typing on the keyboard
• Using the mouse wheel to scroll - oh crap, what did you do that for you moron, now we have another prompt to take care o-

[[Image:uac3.png]]

Side note: I hope you have learned by now that doing these kinds of dangerous things will trigger these prompts. If you don't want to trigger them, then don't do dangerous things like scrolling the mouse wheel!

Anyway, continuing our list of things that will trigger UAC prompts:

• Turning on the computer
• Turning off the computer
• Connecting a USB device
• Sending datagram package doo-flickys down the inter pipeline web mails and such
• Installing, downloading, researching, or even thinking about Linux

Additionally, any activity that could be used for constructing complaints to Microsoft will invoke an unlimited number of UAC prompts, which will force the user to either turn off the computer, or cancel a prompt, thus cancelling the task.

Conception

Microsoft conceived of UAC as a response to the growing criticism of the flawed security in its Windows software,
[[Image:uacwindowsperfect.png]]
and added the feature to their flagship operating system as a "preventative security" measure. The concept was simple: the creation of a feature so annoying would cause users to turn the bloody thing off, giving Microsoft the obvious advantage of being able to blame its users when they say the software isn't secure, and this in turn has given Microsoft "security" in knowing that the feature is "preventing" the users from blaming the Redmond company because they are dipshits who put their credit card details into this fake dialogue box.

[[Category:Windows]] [[Category:Features of Windows Vista]]