Vista UAC PM Interview

Posted By: David Tesar | Jun 3rd @ 12:01 AM

Austin Wilson has been working with the product team on UAC well before it was even created in Windows Vista and gives us some insight into why it is the way it is.  He clears up what UAC really is and speaks about the parental control capabilities with UAC.  Some hard questions are answered like why should a consumer or an IT Pro even bother to run UAC and if we're doing anything about the number of prompts people get.  Additionally, he shows us how and why an IT Pro can still use UAC and not get prompted as well as giving us insight into what are plans for UAC are in the future.

Learn more about UAC
View a screencast comparing UAC at RTM vs SP1
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#Jun 3rd @ 5:39 PM
extreme
extreme

The streaming now works & the valid download starts with "VistaUACPM".  The downloads which start with uacfinal are corrupt.  Sorry for the troubles.

#Jun 5th @ 6:35 AM
Chris128
Chris128
Cleared a few things up for me, maybe even convinced me to give Vista a try...
#Jun 5th @ 8:00 AM
JamesB
JamesB
Oh please. Stop touting that 66% of sessions don't get a UAC prompt. That number is completely and utterly useless and you know it. That's 66% of sessions from 88% of machines that some noob turned on "Customer Experience Improvement" which probably includes nothing but Microsoft owned systems. Give us a real number since you know how many copies of Vista have been sold and how many unique PC's you are getting reports from. My guess is it's less than 10% but come on give us a real number to work with if you want us to buy that users don't see UAC prompts.

I am not coming down on Vista or the idea of UAC but I am sick and tired of useless marketing garbage which after a year and a half hasn't sold the market on Vista. See the name on this site, TECHNET, leave the marketing crap at the door!
#Jun 5th @ 9:34 AM
hal66
hal66

Microsoft sells software and services!  What is there about that you don't understand? As for a the benefits, let me tell you about my experiences in the "real world".  I am a retiree after spending 40+ years as an IT Professional.   UAC has always been one of the most important issues when developing a multi-user application.  Being able to limit end-user-task at many levels is one of the most important issues facing us in the "real world".  Many application developers supplement various operating system security conventions with an even more restrictive UAC.  So lighten up on Microsoft.  They are making efforts to develop a more inclusive User Account Control foundation.

HST

#Jun 5th @ 11:10 AM
JR
JR

With regards to the sessions, I think you've let your emotions overheat your brain.  Mr. Wilson specifically states during the interview that there are tens of thousands of machines currently part of the Customer Experience , and he says "No, not millions, yet."  Also, he specifically points out that these users are average users, and MS machines are filtered out of the mix.  He also states that the 66% of users who have opted in to the Customer Experience Initiative and that do not see prompts at all only experience no prompting AFTER a few weeks of ownership.  That is to say, once the changes to the initial install, including installation of new applications and OS configuration, have settled down.  This is not those users who get prompts while they are configuring their OS for a couple of weeks.

Not to make assumptions here, but did you even really LISTEN to the rest of the interview?

It really amazes me how often some people get ideas in their heads and instead of looking for statements of fact to support their opinions they look for statements of opinion to support their "facts".

#Jun 6th @ 10:46 AM
John.B
John.B
Hello.

I've known about that little secpol.msc thing ever since Vista came out, but I left it alone because I thought that would eliminate the entire point of UAC.  Your screencast made me think otherwise, and I thought why not I'll turn it off for a couple of days and see what happens.  I have one suggestion, and one problem - first, naturally, I'll start with the problem.

By going into secpol.msc and disabling prompt for consent, I am not constantly getting Windows Security Alerts telling me that UAC is turned off.  This contradicts what you just covered (and is actually exactly what I thought), by "disabling UAC" but automatically elevating.  So which one is it?  I would think that if UAC was still enabled, it wouldn't constantly give me Windows Security Alerts.

Onto the suggestion, which is really what I think is very important.  That's great that if this does work as you described, UAC is still enabled, and it keeps the programs running at the lowest possible permissions, automatically elevating whenever necessary.  I think it would be a HUGE benefit to get some kind of popup or systray icon or something saying program.exe has automatically been elevated just so we know what privileges we are running in.  That way when I run something, I'll get a little popup in the lower right-hand portion of my screen (similar to the way it complains about a Windows Security Alert) saying program.exe has been automatically elevated, and now I know - AND without a prompt.

Please get back to me on that "problem" and also I would be very interested to hear what you think about my suggestion.

Regards.
#Jun 8th @ 7:26 PM
extreme
extreme
When you have the automatic elevation enabled UAC is still turned on the machine, but you don't get prompted for just that user.  You'll still have all of the other benefits of UAC as Austin mentions.  I agree it would be nice to have the option for turning on a notification for when the automatic elevation has taken place.
#Jun 8th @ 10:24 PM
John.B
John.B
Well, if you agree it would be nice please pass that around to the appropriate person(s) Smiley

As for the automatic elevation, yes I heard what Austin mentioned saying that's the INTENDED behavior.  However, after enabling automatic elevation I am bombarded with Windows Security Alerts 24/7 about UAC being DISABLED.  So is it a bug, that enabling automatic elevation actually disables UAC, or is it a bug that Security Center is misinforming UAC being disabled?