If you click Continue, Windows permits the action, and thereafter, it??™s
smooth sailing. Or, click Cancel, and Windows forbids the request. As with
any preventive measure, there are costs and benefits to Vista??™s UAC.
First, the good:
It can make Windows safer. In theory, nothing bad can happen to your PC
without your approval. This means so-called drive-by installations from
nasty web sites you view in Internet Explorer, the source of some spyware
and adware, are a thing of the past (in theory). (Of course, you can
also deal with this by changing a few settings, as described in ???Lock
Down Internet Explorer??? in Chapter 7.)
It can make Windows more stable. Provided you take a few extra steps,
UAC makes it harder for incompetent users to damage a PC by deleting
or replacing files, making unauthorized changes to the Registry, and
screwing up network settings.
Figure 8-12. Every time you (or a program) tries to make a change to your system,
Windows shows you this annoying prompt
482 | Chapter 8: Users and Security
It can make Windows easier to administer. It??™s possible to require a password
at each UAC prompt, meaning a PC??™s administrator doesn??™t have
to create a separate account to make changes. The PC??™s day-to-day user
doesn??™t know the password and can??™t make changes, but the administrator
can sit down and fix a problem in minutes, without even logging out.
Now for the bad:
It breaks some programs. UAC may break software not expressly written
for Vista and the UAC feature.
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