MOVB-08 Does UAC serve any purpose?

User Account Control (aka UAC) is a Vista security feature[*] that has been previously experimented by other operating systems (namely Mac OS X and Linux).
[*] Well, not for Mark Russinovitch

The idea is to have non-admin users by default, and to prompt them in case of an application requiring "elevated" rights.

So far so good, but since users have had admin rights since the beginning of Windows saga, such a change has a huge impact on the user experience.

My bet is, a great bunch of domestic users have (or will have) UAC turned off because of:

Software invites users to disable UAC entirely (or disables UAC silently)

Sample software: TweakVI

You'd better be sure, because there is a second prompt.


User disables UAC entirely by himself

It is as easy as downloading TweakUAC.

According to this completely non-scientific poll (seens on 4sysops.com), that is exactly what is happening now:


Not to mention OEMs that may be tempted to disable UAC
... in order to lower support costs.