Review Of The UAC in Windows 7

2. The Role of UAC

An in-depth look at User Account Control in Windows 7

Windows 7 UAC and Malware

The main role of the UAC is to tell an ordinary user when a task needs the elevated rights of the Protected Administrator account.  Remember that the Windows UAC does not detect malware; for that, you need some sort of anti-virus software.  Also, it's unreasonable to expect the UAC to prevent malware getting into your system, for that you need 'Windows Defender' or a similar utility. 

I am trying to take a balanced view here, and the argument for turning off the UAC focuses on evidence that determined software writers can bypass the UAC.  There have been a number of public demonstrations of code-injection, whereby processes can run without triggering the UAC.  You can prevent this silent elevation of rights by setting the slider above to Always Notify, this is the old Vista setting.

Thus it seems that either you worry about when a program needs elevated privileges in which case you move the UAC slide down, or you don't care and move the slider to Never Notify.  A consensus is emerging that say the default central positions are useless.

Microsoft's Goal for Windows 7 UAC

Microsoft's goal is still to encourage people to logon as standard users and not with the administrator account.  To achieve this goal Windows 7 enables standard users to perform operations that previously required administrative rights.  As a result, even the default Windows 7 UAC mode reduces the number of prompts and thus makes the administration experience smoother.

Where the Protected Administrator (PA) credentials are required, the UAC appears to remind the user of the importance of the change they are about to make.  When the UAC does kick-in it's because you selects a setting that wants to modify the file system, the registry, or call upon the Protected Administrator (PA) account.  Talking of the registry, it's the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE (HKLM) part that's a security threat, therefore applications should use the HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software section of the registry.

Summary of the UAC in Windows 7

I find that knowledge of what the UAC is trying to do makes me more forgiving when it does appear. Also understand the goals behind the UAC makes me appreciate the improvements between Vista and Windows 7.  The UAC seems smarter in Windows 7, as it only appears when a named program requires elevated rights.  Also the Control Panel provides an easy way to adjust the UAC behavior.

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