88 percent of Vista users leave UAC on
Either love or hate UAC, it’s a part of Vista and we all have to live with it. Some users get so annoyed with it that they turn it off and others just leave it on. UAC is enabled by default in Vista but a minority of users (myself included) are so put out with it that we turn it off.
Data from Information Week suggests that 12 percent of users turn off UAC which leaves 88 percent who leave it on. Either that 88 percent are just overly concerned with security or just leave things in default settings all the time.
But still, 12 percent of Vista users is a substantial number. Unless you happen to be a developer there is no real reason to have UAC on except for the virtualization mode.
There are problems associated with turning UAC off. One is that your system is further open to attack but with Spyware Doctor and a decent third party firewall the risk is minimized. Second, some programs and drivers don’t install properly if it is turned off.
Adobe Reader and certain printer drivers would not install correctly if UAC was turned off. Vista SP1 appears to have corrected the driver problem and Adobe Reader was simply updated to work around it.
If you want to get rid of the annoying UAC dialogs then I suggest a little program called TweakUAC. With it, UAC can be turned off completely, left in “Quiet Mode” or fully enabled. Simply turning UAC on or off can be done through the Security Center but you will need Tweak UAC to enable “Quiet Mode.”
Quiet Mode disables the UAC dialogs but leaves the Virtualization feature enabled. Though, Vista will report that UAC is off even if it’s left in Quiet Mode. Simply check the Task Manager to see if virtualization is enabled. You may have to add the Virtualization column if it is not listed.
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June 27th, 2008
Sweet Blog!
June 27th, 2008
I swear all this guy does is find ways to make any positive news about Vista sound somehow totally negative. Quotes like:
“Either that 88 percent are just overly concerned with security or just leave things in default settings all the time”
and
“But still, 12 percent of Vista users is a substantial number. Unless you happen to be a developer there is no real reason to have UAC on except for the virtualization mode”.
Regarding the first quote, do you really think that windows users are complete idiots? You think that most of the 88% of us just leaves our settings on default settings, even though we might find some of these settings annoying? I’m pretty sure that the most of us of that 88% that you mentioned leave it on because we’re “overly concerned with security”. But, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that we’re overly concerned about it, I mean, after years of using windows 95, 98, ME, 2000, and XP, after the dozens of terrible viruses that cost me countless sums of money to get my computer fixed, I feel that I should be using all the security features that I have to my disposal to prevent myself from having another virus. I had enough of these viruses. I’m willing to bet many users feel a similar way about these viruses.
The second quote, are you really serious when you try to claim that 12% is a substantial number? If people were nearly as annoyed as you are about UAC, then that number would be much higher. 12%? 12%? That really is a small little number. Proving the point that most users realize the need for enhanced security. Only developers would really be the ones that really would need UAC? All I have to say is that 88% of windows users are not devleopers. Not even a percentage close to that. Also, as I said, normal users need the extra security, and that’s why we leave it on.
July 4th, 2008
Very nice Blog! Sweet blog!