Microsoft: Vista feature designed to 'annoy users'
Summary
Topics
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
"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."
Cross claimed that annoying users had been part of a Microsoft strategy to force independent software vendors (ISVs) to make their code more secure, as insecure code would trigger a prompt, discouraging users from executing the code.
"We needed to change the ecosystem," said Cross. "UAC is changing the ISV ecosystem; applications are getting more secure. This was our target--to change the ecosystem. The fact is that there are fewer applications causing prompts. Eighty percent of the prompts were caused by 10 apps, some from ISVs and some from Microsoft. Sixty-six percent of sessions now have no prompts," said Cross.
Cross claimed it is a myth that users just turn UAC off, saying that Microsoft had collected opt-in information from users that showed that 88 percent were running UAC. Cross said it was also a myth that users blindly accept prompts without reading them.
"It's a myth that users click 'yes,' 'yes,' 'yes,' 'yes,'" said Cross. "Seven percent of all prompts are canceled. Users are not just saying 'yes.'"
Security company Kaspersky has severely criticized UAC, claiming in March last year that it would make Vista less secure than Windows XP.
At this year's RSA Conference, however, the security specialist seemed to have changed its tune. With Windows, "there is a large attack surface with a number of entry points," said Jeff Aliber, Kaspersky's U.S. senior director of product marketing. "Anyone trying to shrink that attack surface and promote secure apps development has to be a good thing."
Prior to the launch of Vista, Kaspersky issued a report in January 2007 that said UAC would be ineffectual. The company claimed that many applications perform harmless actions that, in a security context, can appear to be malicious. As UAC flashes up a warning every time such an action is performed, Kaspersky said that users would be forced to either blindly ignore the warning and allow the action to be performed or disable the feature to stop themselves from going "crazy."
Tom Espiner of ZDNet UK reported from San Francisco.
Talkback Most Recent of 14 Talkback(s)
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Microsoft designed to annoy mankind
Would be more fitting ....
fr0thy211th Apr 2008 -
GuidingLight11th Apr 2008 -
storm14k11th Apr 2008 -
RE: Microsoft: Vista feature designed to 'annoy users'
"It's a myth that users click 'yes,' 'yes,' 'yes,' 'yes,'" said Cross. "Seven percent of all prompts are canceled. Users are not just saying 'yes.'"
this could easily mean that 14 percent of users cancel half the prompts they get, and 86 percent which is still a large majority, do blindly click yes for everything.
j.d.bryant@...11th Apr 2008 -
lol...
Only windoze can have a feature designed to 'annoy users'!
Linux rules!
Linux Geek11th Apr 2008 -
theres always a self richeous linux snob!
whoa a totally surprising response from Linux Geek, yeah windows is rubbish but people who live in glass hOuSes shouldn't throw stones.
oh yeah your OS is V flawed windows runs things badly but linux barely runs anything!
yes I know about wine but lets face it at most it runs things badly if at all so windows I regret to say is better.
Syst3mZero11th Apr 2008 -
Who said he was rich?
... or did you mean "self-righteous"?
I use both Windows and Ubuntu. At this point the only software that won't run (well enough) on my Ubuntu system is the Adobe Master Collection.
People who say that Linux "barely runs anything" are people who are (somehow) still unaware of the vast resource that is the open source community. You've also obviously never heard of virtual machines, have you?
You are sadly behind the times and apparently just believe what other blinder-clad sheep are saying.
mattnico11th Apr 2008 -
Linux over windows
I run both winXp and Ubuntu on 2 identical boxes, and have yet to have a problem with the linux box. everytime i turn around, the windows box is running out of memory or committing errors and crashing programs. I found an older version of Wine that has ran everything i've wanted to run, and done so flawlessly. And when you know what you're doing, and how to do it, there's nothing with open source that you can't do.
stretch06913th Apr 2008 -
RE: Microsoft: Vista feature designed to 'annoy users'
No, it's NOT a myth that people have to click "Yes" over and over again. If I tell you to allow an application access to the internet, then ALLOW IT, dammit! Don't try to verify it! Do it!
How do I turn it off?
ilnaras11th Apr 2008 -
RE: Microsoft: Vista feature designed to 'annoy users'
That darn UAC was why I removed VISTA from my desktop computer and installed UBUNTU Linux! I am also preparing to do the same with a notebook I just bought. I am never touching another microsoft product again.
linuxuser_001212th Apr 2008 -
*laughs at you*
While she enjoys her virus free machine.
Spiritusindomit@...12th Apr 2008 -
RE: Microsoft: Vista feature designed to 'annoy users'
I am not surprised at all by this "revelation". One of Windows's great faults has been that users default to an omnipotent Admin account. I applaud that MS is finally forcing its users to do their everyday work at a safer security level. But, as this report indicates, it isn't just the users who have gotten used to running Windows in Admin mode... There's no good reason that so many applications need to run in Admin mode other than the programmers were lazy. Well, I can be "lazy" too and switch to another program that doesn't trigger the UAC security measures.
Linux (or, more appropriately, Unix) must have gone through similar growing pains back in the day. Why else would there be a "reverse UAC" in the form of SUDO? But these security issues/solutions that we've come to accept in *nix must have caused similar problems back in the day. I don't think there's much historical record about it because it happened so long ago (in the short history of computing), and the majority of the *nix operators would have _wanted_ the tighter security.
R_Connelie@...12th Apr 2008 -
RE: Microsoft: Vista feature designed to 'annoy users'
When Linux gets to be as user friendly and easy as Windows the mass migration from Windows to Linux will be a thunderous stampede.
Zardoc5414th Apr 2008 -
RE: Microsoft: Vista feature designed to 'annoy users'
I only use windows because it is easier than Linux if it was easier to use I would and take off vista altogether.
I have wondered about other Linux programmes like Linux XP for instance as I read a lot of windows stuff is compatible
on another matter I just stop UAC if they in their usual godly fashion keep it in windows 7 I will just find a tweak to get rid of it.
whizzed9th Oct 2008
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