Windows Vista UAC Meant To Annoy Users
April 13, 2008 | by Christopher Nickson
Microsoft deliberately designed the User Account Control prompts in Windows Vista to annoy people, the company admits — but there's a good reason for it.
Anyone who uses Windows Vista has come across it, even if you didn’t know it had a new purpose. It’s the prompt that pops up when you want to install a new program. Called the User Account Control, or UAC, it’s annoying – but that’s exactly what Microsoft intended.
Why? They feel it will increase pressure on third-party developers to make their software more secure.
Under previous editions of Windows, users had administrator privileges. With Vista though, people become standard users, which is why the prompt appears, since most applications need administrator privileges to be run or installed.
As Microsoft’s David Cross explained at last week’s RSA Conference in San Francisco,
"We needed to change the ecosystem. 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."
Cross claimed that 88% of users were running UAC, rather than turning it off, and that 7% of prompts were cancelled, indicating users were not just automatically clicking yes.
Prior to the introduction of Vista, some warned that UAC would create a huge barrier between users and company, one of frustration and anger. However, they’ve changed their tune over time, citing increased security as a plus, rather than a minus.
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