Windows Vista has gotten its fair share of complaints since the launch and even if some of them have been harsh and unjustified, there are things that could improve. One of these is without a doubt Microsoft’s security feature User Account Control (UAC) that is supposed to protect the computer from harmful code running with administrative privileges. Alas it has turned out that many applications required these privileges to start, or even install, which caused UAC to either pop up or simply stop it from running.
The number of applications affected by UAC has been drastically reduced from over 700,000 to 170,000 after reprogramming Vista’s guide lines, but to many users it doesn’t really matter because they have turned the UAC feature off.
With Windows 7, the successor to Vista, Microsoft claims to have learned from its mistake and has now announced that it will tone down UAC with Windows 7.
“In summary, yes, we’ve heard the responses to the UAC feature – both positive and negative. We plan to continue to build on the benefits UAC provides as an agent for standard user, making systems more secure. In doing so, we will also address the overwhelming feedback that the user experience must improve.- Ben Fathi, Microsoft engineer
Even Steve Ballmer himself has said that few everyday users were not ready to sacrifice compatibility and usability of so many programs in exchange for better security when it is as restrictive as UAC.
