Microsoft Claims Vista UAC Is 'Misunderstood'

It's safe to say that there are aspects of Windows Vista that many users find annoying, with problems related to application compatibility, system performance, and Vista's User Account Control (UAC) feature topping the list of complaints.

But In a document published Tuesday that's sure to rile many in the 'Vista Sucks' camp, Microsoft insists that the pain some users have experienced is due to misconceptions that exist about certain features in Vista and what makes them tick.

In Microsoft's view, the User Account Control feature in Vista, which has been widely criticized for the nagging alerts it generates, has been unfairly maligned in IT industry circles. "If there's one feature that has received a bad rap it's User Account Control," Microsoft said in the document.

As a security measure, Vista emphasizes that users run with reduced, or Standard User privileges, in order to lower the impact of security exploits by limiting file and registry access by applications on the PC.

The problem, according to Microsoft, is that third party software developers are still developing applications based on Local Administrator privileges, and UAC has become a scapegoat of sorts because it's designed to limit the functionality of these applications.

"In some cases, prompts are triggered by third-party applications that have not been written to run with Standard User privileges," Microsoft says in the document. "A key goal of UAC in Windows Vista is to help nudge ISVs towards designing applications that function in Standard User mode."

Microsoft's claim that UAC's reputation has been unfairly tarnished is ironic. In February at the RSA 2008 conference, David Cross, a product unit manager at Microsoft who was part of the team that developed UAC, said that Microsoft's strategy with UAC was to annoy users and ISVs in order to get them to change their behavior.

Bob Nitrio, president of RanVest Associates, a system builder based Orangeville, Calif., says UAC "can be very annoying", but understands that Microsoft included it as a measure to boost security. However, without wholesale cases in which XP users are being compromised because of the lack of UAC, it's tough to make a substantial case for UAC, Nitrio said.

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