Vista's Troublesome UAC is Developer's Fault?

MythMoth wonders: "We've heard all about the pain and discomfort of working with Windows' User Account Control (UAC) switched on, but now Ian Griffiths is explaining that the developers are the problem — they brought it on themselves. In earlier articles we have heard that Microsoft think that everyone should do it like this — Ian does acknowledge that things are better in the Unix world, but is he right? Is the onus now on the developers to help fix a problem that they did not cause?" Rather than ask the user for permission on every operation, what other ways could Microsoft have improved Vista's security?

Comments

Re:I kinda like the concept

[AlbertinaJane]

You should try some of the Linux-based operating systems. Yesterday I installed new Ubuntu. Prior doing that I backed up my root partition (I have /home - something like Documents and Settings - on different partition). I merely copied files to my USB disk. Took like 10 minutes for 8 gigs of data. Then I installed Ubuntu 7.04, hated the fonts, convinced that they're different than in 6.06 (or the rendering is different), I restored my backup back to 6.06. Just copied the files. 10 minutes. In unix world, you usualy just copy the files! No stupid registry things. (Ok, let's forget for a second that there is gconf :( ) Using Debian then and now Ubuntu I have much less fuss than I it with Windows. Ok, I am quite familiar with Debian, so Ubuntu is a breeze, but 7.04 is realy realy realy user friendly! It downloads the codeces and stuff automaticaly, all you have to do is say 'yes, buntu, do it for me!'. Neat! :) The only thing I'm missing from Windows world are games. Yes, there is Quake and UT and likes, but I miss Need for Speed and Age of Empires.... They run under Cedega, but they're unplayable (P4@1.7+768MB+Radeon9600 - those work under WindowsXP quite well). Seriousley, try Ubuntu (or any other distro, but I feel that you'll have least fuss with Ubuntu), and see how thigns are done there. Then, maybe, you'll see why UAC concept is not that good, esp. the way Microsoft implemented it.

Re:Admin-level privileges

[Threni]

> 10 ? "All hardware is crap, all software is crap, all users are crap."
> 20 GOTO 10

Shocking. You should try and avoid gotos unless you can't.

while (true)
    ? "All hardware is crap, all software is crap, all users are crap."
wend

or

do while (true)
    ? "All hardware is crap, all software is crap, all users are crap."
loop

or

for (;;)
  printf ("All hardware is crap, all software is crap, all users are crap.\n");

It's hard to pick any faults in your sentiments, however.