Why you don’t want to disable UAC

The Windows Vista Security blog has a great post entitled FAQ: Why can’t I bypass the UAC prompt? which provides good answers to the common questions around User Account Control. It also gives some insight on why Microsoft made the design decisions that they did.

We expect that in ordinary day-to-day usage, users should rarely, if ever, see elevation prompts, since most should rarely, if ever, have to perform administrative tasks – and never in a well-managed enterprise. Elevation prompts are to be expected when setting up a new system or installing new software. Beyond that, they should be infrequent enough that they catch your attention when they occur, and not simply trigger a reflexive approval response.

UAC is a great feature and too many people cite it as a reason for not moving to Vista, or disable it once they have moved to Vista. I’ve been running Vista full-time for about a month now. Yes, while I set up the system and installed applications and drivers, UAC got on my nerves. Now, I only see it when I infrequently perform administrative tasks like installing software or changing system settings. I view this as a good thing.