Comment Feed for Vista UAC PM Interview (Media on TechNet Edge)

Re: Re: Vista UAC PM Interview

John.B — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 06:08:01 GMT

If you've been an IT pro for years, I'd assume you'd know all of this - but I'll continue anyway;

secpol is short for Local Security Policies. Now what does the Local Security Policies snap-in for mmc do? It extends the Group Policy snap-in and helps define security policies for computers in your domain. Backing up a second to your post, you're running Home Premium - keyword HOME. Home versions don't run on domains, and thus don't have domain settings. If you really, really need to perform functions in secpol you can use Google (available in all versions of Vista) to find the registry keys for the respective setting. Most of the secpol settings are available in Home Premium using Registry Editor, and can be done this way.

Re: Vista UAC PM Interview

RebelEagle — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 04:17:10 GMT

I have been an IT pro For Years; But I must admit this Vista OS has been a pain In the A** at times; For example I have Vista Home Premium with service pack 1 that was installed by myself within the past couple of months; Now here is the problem; when ever I type secpol.msc into the search box it takes forever before i get results, which usually to always results in the same result(secpol.msc not found), if I open the mmc console through right clicking my computer and selecting manage I can get to mmc, but still no listing for security polices local policies or any thing else. I,m about to use the recovery disc I created when I 1st got the PC to set it back to Factory Install. But before I do Can anyone suggest how I can open The security policies other than secpol.msc. Or is this something that Home Premium versions is not allowed to access, for I have noticed when I try to run a performance report I get a prompt ( see attached), which bewilders me for the fact that I,m an Administrator and when originally setup PC set Myself as the Administrator. On another note I have tryed to uninstall Service pack several times and always get the same result; Unable to complete uninstall of service pack 1; while watching the video interview I paused it several times and even backed up so I could see exactly where the page was located; but still have not been able to recreate. I take constructive criticism very well as well as offering tips to coherts in Both Vista and Any other OS They might run. I like to think of myself as being excellent at understanding other OS's but must admit Vista can be a royal pain In the A** at times; so I,m Open for any suggestions tech admins or others may have for me...........................Respectfully..........RebelEagle

Re: Re: Re: Re: Vista UAC PM Interview

extreme — Wed, 18 Jun 2008 16:23:23 GMT

It is not our desire at Edge to have any marketing spew. You have to have some statistics to measure how you're doing, this is just one of them. If you take the entire Vista user base which has voluntarily opted into the customer experience improvement program, take out the machines from Microsoft, and then you get the "over 1 Million machines" which were included in this stat as Austin points out. I don't see how it would matter if he would give specific numbers of Vista sales as this is not related to how many prompts you get with UAC. Even if you don't believe any stats being said, it would be hard to argue Microsoft is not trying to reduce the number of prompts and improve UAC.

Re: Re: Re: Vista UAC PM Interview

JamesB — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 20:39:23 GMT

I still stick to my guns that spouting any numbers such as 66% when we do not know the sampling rate is marketing spew and better served on microsoft.com and not technet.com. I would argue that Microsoft knows the exact number of Vista machines out there via the phone home "feature", the exact number of Vista sales and the exact number in the CEIP so failing to cite those numbers would point to it being less than flattering.

As to the other post/replies please note I did not come down on Vista, call it garbage or say UAC was a PITA. For the record I run Vista on my Desktop and have UAC turned on so I know exactly how many times UAC prompts me and what tweaks can be made to it. My field notebook however is XP and will stay XP. I also have SBS03, WHS, W2k3 Webserver Ed, W2k3 Standard running and hold both MCITP Vista Consumer and Enterprise so I'm not some basher with no background on the products.

Re: Re: Re: Vista UAC PM Interview

John.B — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 02:58:56 GMT

Just a quick question, were you aware of that bug before I mentioned it or did I bring it to your attention? Also, will that bug be fixed anytime? In the meantime, if the bug fix is a long way off, is it safe for me to set the ignore UAC settings option for Security Center?

Glad you liked the idea about the notifications, I'm assuming that's something not for an update. So is it to be looked at for SP2 or Windows 7?

Re: Re: Vista UAC PM Interview

Austin Wilson — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 19:30:03 GMT

The data we’re citing is based on over 1 million machines that are part of the Customer Experience Improvement program. Out of a sample size that is as big as that, we get a wide range of end users with varying degrees of experience, from beginner to expert. In my opinion, the most important part of this when it comes to User Account Control is the information showing that the number of sessions without prompts is trending upward month by month. Sure, if you’re running MMC multiple times a day you’re going to see prompts. But that’s not what the average user is doing. If you are running MMC many times a day, consider opening a command window with admin privileges and launch MMC from there. It will launch with admin privileges from there without a prompt. You could also try the change in consent prompt behavior that I mentioned in the interview to allow programs to automatically elevate.

Re: Re: Vista UAC PM Interview

Austin Wilson — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 19:27:05 GMT

You’re right; Windows Security Center does show User Account Control as being off if you set it to “no prompt” mode. That is a bug. You can confirm that UAC is still on in a couple of ways: 1) Launch Internet Explorer and you’ll see “Protected Mode: On” in the status bar. If you disable User Account Control, IE protected mode will be disabled as well and show as "Off" in the status bar. 2) Log in as a standard user and you’ll see that Windows Security Center is green and doesn't show User Account Control as being disabled.

Thanks for the suggestion about notifications when something is automatically elevated. That is something we can look at for a future release.

Re: Vista UAC PM Interview

neil — Tue, 10 Jun 2008 04:57:11 GMT

There has been other conversations on this subject. Generally, everybody accepts that this is required in this world of viruses, but we could do better with the pop-up requirements.

http://www.neowin.net/news/main/08/05/20/has-windows-vistas-uac-feature-failed-microsoft

Re: Re: Re: Vista UAC PM Interview

John.B — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 05:24:26 GMT

Well, if you agree it would be nice please pass that around to the appropriate person(s) :)

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?

Re: Re: Vista UAC PM Interview

extreme — Mon, 09 Jun 2008 02:26:20 GMT

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.

Re: Vista UAC PM Interview

John.B — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 17:46:24 GMT

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.

Re: Re: Vista UAC PM Interview

JR — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 18:10:49 GMT

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".

Re: Re: Vista UAC PM Interview

hal66 — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 16:34:56 GMT

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

Re: Vista UAC PM Interview

JamesB — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 15:00:06 GMT

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!

Re: Vista UAC PM Interview

Chris128 — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 13:35:54 GMT

Cleared a few things up for me, maybe even convinced me to give Vista a try...

66% of user sessions don't see UAC - THE OFFICIAL BLOG OF THE SBS "DIVA"

System — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 04:37:39 GMT

Pingback from 66% of user sessions don't see UAC - THE OFFICIAL BLOG OF THE SBS "DIVA"

Re: Vista UAC PM Interview

extreme — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 00:39:00 GMT

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