The only "better way" is to take away computers/net access from all the stupid people. Seriously, there IS no stopping the stupid people from getting themselves infected. It simply can't be done.
As such, security features should be written for those that flicker of intelligence behind our eyes. For those people, UAC is actually fairly good, ESPECIALLY for system administrators. Hell, I LOVE being able to log into my admin account, run with standard user permissions, and be able to easily escalate my privileges when needed.
Not quite the same as giving quick command to elevate the privileges of window. I don't exactly want to do a crapton of typing every time I wanna release my IP address. Workable, but more effort than just right-clicking the cmd.exe shortcut on my desktop and clicking "Run as administrator"...
My main complaint with UAC is the lack of granularity. You have to either approve or disapprove fairly broad strokes.
Not with applications written to play well with UAC. Look at Vista's Automatic Updates, for example. I can open it up, look at the updates available, but I don't have to actually deal with a UAC prompt until I tell it to INSTALL updates.
Fair enough. Trying to run Computer Management is what brought up UAC. But what exactly are you authorizing? Just running the Computer Management screen, or anything and everything you can do in there? Why do I need to authorize it if I just want to look to see if a service is running - not make any changes at all?
Since M$ didn't actually UPDATE the Microsoft Management Console (which is the app that provides the Computer Management screen), it isn't UAC-aware, and thus can only get admin rights when you start it. In other words, UAC is completely capable of the behavior you describe, but it's up to the PROGRAMMERS to implement it. Microsoft SHOULD have spent their time making sure that their own apps worked with UAC as best as the could before Vista launched.
For a more annoying example start up a command prompt without administrative credentials... Then try to do an IPCONFIG/RELEASE... It'll tell you that you can't. And you can't just SUDO it like you would on a Linux box. You have to create a new command prompt with administrative credentials...but now everything you do in that command prompt has administrative credentials, so you've got no added security at all.
Oh, I feel your pain on that one. I would LOVE to see an app that can escalate/de-escalate permissions in a cmd window, and it annoys me that Microsoft didn't provide it.
First of all, the prompt in this particular prompt would be because the Microsoft Management Console, which, since it's used for monkeying around with your system configuration, requires admin rights. And unfortunately, UAC is an all-or-nothing situation: it's either on for everything, or off or off for everything. If it's on, ANYTHING that requires admin rights is going to cause an UAC prompt.
Of course, this is what you're trying to point out; that UAC isn't perfect, it's inflexible. Fine. Disable it. I'm just sick and tired of people making misleading comments and outright LIES about it.
And no, I don't have UAC turned off. And if I did run an app "that wanted to write to windows system directories", I'd adjust the damn permissions. Always got rid of the UAC prompts for me in the past.
The way everyone talks about UAC, it makes me think that maybe my system is some sort of miracle. I mean, I can update Firefox without a UAC prompt, and I didn't even monkey around with anything! Obviously, my machine's just freakish.
Funny. I'm using Vista right now, and I can't remember more than four times in the last MONTH that I've gotten a UAC prompt.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I gotta run to my throne so I can take a monster crap. I'm pretty sure there WON'T be a UAC prompt waiting for me when I get back.
And there are XBox Classics games available from XBLA that are FAR larger than that. All of them, actually. The 350MB limit is for games MADE for XBLA.
Considering that the 360 has sold twice as many units as the PS3 in US & Canada, there's a good reason that they're releasing the game on the 360 outside of Japan...
Of course, in Europe the systems are neck and neck, both having sold 5 million systems, and the PS3 has SMOKED the 360 in Japan (600,000 vs 2 MILLION)...
I'd blame that on your system, man. Neither Steam nor any games I've played with Steam have EVER caused ANY of my systems to crash. Considering that one of those systems is a dual-boot XP x64/Vista 64 system, that's saying something...
Nope, sorry, not happening...
The files cache locally, and will upload when Steam detects an internet connection. You keep a copy of all your settings on your local system. So long as you're playing on the system you made the save game, you'll always have access to it...
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Mod parent "redundant", grandparent beat him to it.
If that program needs admin rights, yes, even in Ubuntu.
The only "better way" is to take away computers/net access from all the stupid people. Seriously, there IS no stopping the stupid people from getting themselves infected. It simply can't be done.
As such, security features should be written for those that flicker of intelligence behind our eyes. For those people, UAC is actually fairly good, ESPECIALLY for system administrators. Hell, I LOVE being able to log into my admin account, run with standard user permissions, and be able to easily escalate my privileges when needed.
Not quite the same as giving quick command to elevate the privileges of window. I don't exactly want to do a crapton of typing every time I wanna release my IP address. Workable, but more effort than just right-clicking the cmd.exe shortcut on my desktop and clicking "Run as administrator"...
My main complaint with UAC is the lack of granularity. You have to either approve or disapprove fairly broad strokes.
Not with applications written to play well with UAC. Look at Vista's Automatic Updates, for example. I can open it up, look at the updates available, but I don't have to actually deal with a UAC prompt until I tell it to INSTALL updates.
Fair enough. Trying to run Computer Management is what brought up UAC. But what exactly are you authorizing? Just running the Computer Management screen, or anything and everything you can do in there? Why do I need to authorize it if I just want to look to see if a service is running - not make any changes at all?
Since M$ didn't actually UPDATE the Microsoft Management Console (which is the app that provides the Computer Management screen), it isn't UAC-aware, and thus can only get admin rights when you start it. In other words, UAC is completely capable of the behavior you describe, but it's up to the PROGRAMMERS to implement it. Microsoft SHOULD have spent their time making sure that their own apps worked with UAC as best as the could before Vista launched.
For a more annoying example start up a command prompt without administrative credentials... Then try to do an IPCONFIG /RELEASE... It'll tell you that you can't. And you can't just SUDO it like you would on a Linux box. You have to create a new command prompt with administrative credentials...but now everything you do in that command prompt has administrative credentials, so you've got no added security at all.
Oh, I feel your pain on that one. I would LOVE to see an app that can escalate/de-escalate permissions in a cmd window, and it annoys me that Microsoft didn't provide it.
First of all, the prompt in this particular prompt would be because the Microsoft Management Console, which, since it's used for monkeying around with your system configuration, requires admin rights. And unfortunately, UAC is an all-or-nothing situation: it's either on for everything, or off or off for everything. If it's on, ANYTHING that requires admin rights is going to cause an UAC prompt.
Of course, this is what you're trying to point out; that UAC isn't perfect, it's inflexible. Fine. Disable it. I'm just sick and tired of people making misleading comments and outright LIES about it.
Actually, it's a gaming system...
And no, I don't have UAC turned off. And if I did run an app "that wanted to write to windows system directories", I'd adjust the damn permissions. Always got rid of the UAC prompts for me in the past.
The way everyone talks about UAC, it makes me think that maybe my system is some sort of miracle. I mean, I can update Firefox without a UAC prompt, and I didn't even monkey around with anything! Obviously, my machine's just freakish.
Yep.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=118075&cid=9980688
Yeah, see, if I do that, I'm pretty sure I'm going to know what the damn UAC prompt is for.
Funny. I'm using Vista right now, and I can't remember more than four times in the last MONTH that I've gotten a UAC prompt.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I gotta run to my throne so I can take a monster crap. I'm pretty sure there WON'T be a UAC prompt waiting for me when I get back.
By the context it comes up in?
Seriously. I run Vista, and I've NEVER seen a UAC prompt come up where I didn't know what it was for.
And if you DON'T know what it is? Freaking hit cancel! What's the worst that'll happen? Something you're trying to do errors out? OH NOES!
Hey Bob, remember last week when you asked what the definition of "irony" was...?
http://www.steampowered.com/steamworks/index.php
The Internet sees ALL.
I'm running a Vista Ultimate system using GRUB as my bootloader. No problems installing SP1 after installing openSUSE...
And there are XBox Classics games available from XBLA that are FAR larger than that. All of them, actually. The 350MB limit is for games MADE for XBLA.
Correction: 350 meg limit.
Considering that the 360 has sold twice as many units as the PS3 in US & Canada, there's a good reason that they're releasing the game on the 360 outside of Japan...
Of course, in Europe the systems are neck and neck, both having sold 5 million systems, and the PS3 has SMOKED the 360 in Japan (600,000 vs 2 MILLION)...
Psst... there IS a Xenosaga anime series...
I'd blame that on your system, man. Neither Steam nor any games I've played with Steam have EVER caused ANY of my systems to crash. Considering that one of those systems is a dual-boot XP x64/Vista 64 system, that's saying something...
Yeah, actually, I was referring to the "cannot load save games" bit that the OP made. I already know full well how this will work, man. Read the post.
JUST LIKE NOW!
Hold on now, I never signed that.
Here, let me get my pen...
It's worth noting that you can set Vista up to ask for you password even if you ARE logged on as an admin.