Vista and Windows 7 - reactions

[format]

To counterpoint that... I've had to clean up 3 laptops in the past fortnight with junk installed that UAC *would* have prevented. In each and every case UAC had been disabled because they'd read on an IT forum that it just "gets in the way"



It's there as an extra layer. It can't save someone from their own stupidity. Let me give you a "for example".

Jimmy is installing an application with UAC active. He gets prompted and because he knows that he needs to make system level changes in order to install this application he accepts that the change is authorised. The application installs, and Jimmy continues about his business.

Billy is surfing the internets. He only ever uses trusted sites, because he read that trawling for pr0n and warez could land him in trouble, especially as he's at work. He was told by Dave in Accounts that UAC is nothing more than an annoyance, so he turned it off. He visits www.hexus.net and immediately doesn't receive a UAC prompt. What he doesn't know is that the adservers have been compromised, and one of the banners has silently installed malware on his machine. As he's not aware of it, he continues about his business only to find that a few days later his bank has been cleared out/his machine is part of a massive spam-spewing botnet/make up your own scenario.




Now I'm not saying that Hexus' adservers have been compromised, I'm using it as an example of a trusted site that serves ad banners from a third party server (at least I'm guessing that intellitxt.com is a 3rd party - it could well be owned by DR, but it serves the purpose as an example) over which they have little to no control. A UAC prompt, 5 seconds of thought is all it takes to decide if a change is authorised. If you'd prefer not to be made aware that a change is taking place and given the opportunity to stop it that's your choice, my (educated) choice is to keep UAC enabled.

That's why I run NoScript

[Splash]

That's why I run NoScript

...which is another smart move, and another layer of security for you. Think of IT security as a big onion: the more layers there are, and the better configured they are the harder it is for Bad Stuff to get a hold of your PC. NoScript however won't help you with an out of the box Vista install, as it doesn't come preinstalled, and doesn't work with the default browser.

[aidanjt]

Well, just to show that I know you are wrong.

I have been using Vista with UAC disabled for 2 years, and have never had any reason to enable it. No viruses, no spyware, no malware, never had anything other than a tracking cookie in the 2+ years of surfing with Vista.

And just to add a greater point that your wrong:
Vista UAC asks you so many times [Ok],[Cancel] that the average user gets so used to hitting Ok after every single little thing they do (deleting a quick launch icon for example) that they often do not read the prompt at all and hit Ok for every single thing that they inevitably one time let a virus or whatever come through and do its thing.

When you get used to hitting Ok for everything you do on Vista when something actually does happen you let it go through due to repetitiveness.

LOLZ I WANNA B L33T JUST LIK U WHEN I GROW UP!!!!!!111!

Anyway, back to all seriousness now. Just because *you* haven't been infected *yet* due to lack of UAC, it doesn't mean that UAC doesn't add an extra layer of security. That's like saying jumbo jets don't crash just because you haven't been in a jumbo jet crash before. Famous last words before Einstein proves that gravity works like he says?

As for the 'Ok', 'Ok', 'Ok', 'Ok', 'Ok', click mentality of Vista, yep, that sounds like UAC, but wait, doesn't the authorisation prompt blank out the screen?.. bound to raise your eyebrows. And isn't that Windows overall anyway? There's also a simple solution to that 'problem', don't make yourself an administrator. And don't assume everything you click 'ok' to, to be benign.

[Alaron251]

Vista on release was worse than terrible, but no it is sufficient.

[GaryRW]

Been using for a day now. Seemed to be flakey at the start - each boot it would be a black screen and I'd need to change the themes backwards and forwards to see things again (all I could see was the start button - the other taskbar buttons were there if you clicked where they should be, but just not visible). media centre was also weird and kept freezing.

I think this was all due to the nvidia drivers. I had let windows update install the windows 7 drivers, but when I uninstalled those and loaded the normal vista drivers under vista compatibility mode everything seemed ok.

& on the subject of media center seems like quite a few minor improvements there. I think that's my general reaction, lots of nice little touches that add up. Like being able to click straight to live tv in media center from the start menu.

I'm also surprised how quickly I'm getting used to the new taskbar!

Now if I can just get windows shares visible from my soft-modded xbox running xbmc, I'll be a happy bunny

[synaesthesia]

Gary, mine worked fairly straight "Off the bat" with an identically modded xbox.

Create a homegroup, fiddle around with the settings to make sure it sees your xbox, pc and anything else, enable "media sharing" and you can either just use the windows PC as a upnp server for xbmc or share a folder.

Reminds me, I need to hard code a location in XBMC for mine so it doesnt take half a day to search for shares :/

[GaryRW]

synaesthesia - thanks. I've started a new thread as I don't want to take this one too off topic.

[format]

There's a new 7022 build kicking about now.

[Singh400]

There's a new 7022 build kicking about now.

Yup, tempted to give it a whirl in VPC.

[magneticman]

apparently there's 2025 (arstechnica) and 2032 (rumour) too.

[Singh400]

apparently there's 2025 (arstechnica) and 2032 (rumour) too.

Internally Microsoft are up to 7034. Can't wait for RC

[magneticman]

externally i can't wait

kiddhan singh saab

[Singh400]

externally i can't wait

kiddhan singh saab

tiikha bhaji

[KidChameleon]

I was using Windows 7 64 for a while and on the whole it seemed to work very well on my desktop. Except whenever I was watching a video in WMP12, the picture would become garbled, then the screen would go blank and the drivers would reset. A similar thing happened when leaving the menu in SimCity4 to start a game. Ati don't seem to have made any drivers for the x1950. I've seen there are Windows 7 prerelease drivers but they are for 2000 series cards and above. I tried installing Vista drivers in compatibility mode but the installer just hung at about 75%.

On the old laptop, it works ok but the sound drivers don't work, and being the fool that I am I can't get into XP now. I think it might be because I assigned a drive letter to the XP partition from within Win7 and now the boot thing doesn't know where to look. I've tried a few guides on how to fix it but they don't do anything for me.

[rkingb]

I haven't used Vista in anger for any period myself, but two laptop users have asked me to "downgrade?" to XP for them for mainly speed and networking reasons.
I started playing with Windows 7, but then managed to delete the partition in error. From my albeit brief flirtation I liked it, seeme faster and "tidier".
I will soon have time to re-install and give it more of a test.

[dangel]

Well, just to show that I know you are wrong.

But we all know you're wrong. You just another one of those people who shout about how great it is to not have security because the speeding truck hasn't hit you.. yet.

Personally I don't hope it ever does - but the advice you're giving has more holes than a colander. People aren't disagreeing with you to win internet(z) points buddy.