Windows 7 issues.

[nibbler]

I moved today to windows 7 64bit professional from windows xp. As you can imagine this is quite a change. I want to get rid of all the annoying settings that ask me if I really want to open programs and things like that. Any ideas? And how do I give xfire permission to run an old game (enemy territory) as administrator?

[scaryjim]

You should be able to change the settings for an individual program to always run as administrator under compatibility in the properties dialogue. Depending on the compatibility mode you set on it it may or may not ask for permission to run. I'd strongly advise against turning off UAC- it's far less intrusive in 7 than it was in Vista, and I haven't found it to be a problem at all. It's there to prvent a variety of malware attacks that used to run themselves automatically under older versions of Windows, and should help you avoid the annoyance of having to completely reinstall windows because something pernicious has wormed its way onto your PC.

[this_is_gav]

Control Panel > User Accounts > Change User Account Control settings > change as desired.

The best practice is probably to turn the notification settings down while you're installing programs, then when you're done, turn it back up again. UAC certainly shouldn't be turned off for day to day use - it's a fantastic system that just needs a bit of adapting to.

I don't know what xfire is, but presumably if you go to the .exe of the game itself (C:\Program Files (x86)\Enemy Territory or whatever), then right-click on the .exe of the program, go to the Compatibility tab, then select "Run this program as an administrator", I think it should start with admin privelidges, regardless of where it's launched from.

[nibbler]

I turned it down 1 notch. I'll get used to it I guess. Cheers guys

[nibbler]

Any serious implications of turning off the AVG firewall? It's as bad as the UAC

[Viper81]

You could turn off AVG's firewall and turn on the Windows firewall if you're happy with just blocking incoming connections.
You can then also chose whether the Windows firewall notifies you about each program it's blocked or just does it silently (you can probably do the same thing within AVG's firewall)

[nibbler]

I just disabled both. Doesn't the router have a firewall?

[this_is_gav]

That depends on your router. I've not bothered with software firewalls for years personally.

[scaryjim]

How confident are you that your router's firewall is catching both unwanted incoming packets (e.g. port scanning attacks) *and* unwanted outgoing packets (e.g. sent by a trojan / keylogger / other malware)? One of the big advantages of having a software firewall scanning outgoing traffic is that it can help you to spot a malware attack that your AV has missed by warning you about outgoing network traffic that you haven't instigated. I guess it depends on how paranoid you are. Me, I'm very paranoid, so I don't think having a software firewall running inside my internal network is such a bad thing.

And besides, there's nothing funnier than the Windows Firewall blocking Internet Explorer from accessing the internet and asking you if you trust the publisher

[nibbler]

Which is less intrusive, Windows or AVG firewall?

[GlasgowGuy]

TBH, Windows is usually less intrusive as it only looks at incoming connections.

AVG (IIRC) looks at in and out, which is more secure, but more intrusive wrt. notifications and alerts.

[nibbler]

I'm not gonna bother with either and just scan regularly, avg already caught malware this morning :L