Frogboy:
If the bloody thing just remembered programs (store a checksum to be safe) that the user had already said "continue" I'd be happy.
Microsoft's reasoning for not doing this is that if this was possible (and lets call it 'blessing an application') and the user blessed, say, the Command Prompt, then a malware application could in theory launch the Command Prompt (which would then run with admin privileges WITHOUT displaying a UAC prompt) and use it to lauch a copy of itself. Because privilege is inherited, the malware launched by the 'blessed' Command Prompt would in turn run with admin privileges and have full access to the whole system.
Even if I do understand the reasoning behind this, there are two things I would like to point out: first, how would the malware know which applications have been 'blessed' and which not, so it knows which ones to 'abuse'? Second, it's still the user's responsability to reply Yes or No to an UAC prompt. Why trust the user for this and not for 'blessing' applications, then?! Doesn't make sense to me.
Here's a reality check to the people who want to just pretend that everything is fine: People are turning it off. Look around. Look at the posts. People are turning it off.
Unfortunately we, software developers, still have to change our applications so they work with the minority(?) that doesn't turn the UAC off. No less burden there for us.
Jan71:
Please define normal daily functions ? For me that means : surfing the web, do some office work, play a game, chat, ...
How about drag & dropping stuff from one window to another? Would you not think of this as 'normal daily function'? It so happens that, as I previously stated, a by-product of the UAC is that you are NOT able to do this if the target application is running with higher privileges than the source application. And I could give you a hundred different examples of little things that are not working properly, or at all, because of the current UAC implementation.
Also, you are here because you like to play with customization software. Customization software is NOT a 'spreadsheet' or 'word processor' type of application. For customization software to work properly, it needs to do things that normal applications do not. So, how would you like if, in the name of security, suddenly all you would be able to run were 'word processing' type of applications?
Microsoft however should give better information what rules to follow to 3rd party developers like Stardock
Agreed 100%. The current lack of information on the part of Microsoft on how to get around these limitations is appalling!
Microsoft could refine it, for example explain a little bit more in detail what the program in question is trying to do, for example a box telling : this program is trying to install itself, or this program is trying to adjust your modem dial out number, that is a change that would be helpful and make it more acceptable for most.
Altough apparently a good idea, because it is up to the application itself to request an elevation of privilege (unless it has 'setup', 'install', etc..., in the filename, in which case Windows will automatically assume it needs admin privileges to install *something*), Windows has no way of knowing what an application requiring admin privileges wants them for. If an application does not explicitily request an elevation of privilege via its manifest, then no UAC prompt will be displayed, the application will run with normal privileges and any function it calls that requires admin privileges will fail. It would thus be up to the applications themselves to give Windows the reason WHY they need to be elevated, not to the OS itself.
