Microsoft Purposefully Annoyed Users with Vista
So I just read an article at cnet that gives more evidence that Microsoft doesn't really care about end users. Apparently, Microsoft deliberatly wanted to annoy their users with User Account Control (UAC), according David Cross, the Microsoft manager that was in charge of UAC during Vista's development. "The reason we put UAC into the (Vista) platform was to annoy users--I'm serious," said Cross.
You've probably heard of UAC in Windows Vista. If not, here's a quote from Wikipedia, "[UAC] aims to improve the security of Microsoft Windows by limiting application software to standard user privileges until an administrator authorizes an increase in privilege level." From most accounts, UAC is very annoying because it often gets in your way when you just want to run your software.
According to Mr. Cross, a big problem with legacy software in Vista is that often the software was written to run under an Administrator account, while Vista sets users up on a non-privileged account by default. So UAC was designed as a mechanism for users to permit their software to run, even if it requires administrator priviledges. So far I'm with Microsoft on this one. Where we part ways is when Microsoft decided to annoy the crap out of their users with UAC. Why did they do this? Microsoft wants to put pressure on software developers so that they will update their software to run under a non priviledged account. So here's the scenario, the way I see it:
- Microsoft makes users Administrators by default in Win XP (and all previous versions).
- While developing Vista, Microsoft forsees a problem with legacy software when they give users a non-priviledged account by default.
- Microsoft wants to pressure software vendors to update their software so it will run under a non-privileged account.
- Rather than spending some of their billions of dollars in the bank to put pressure on Software vendors, Microsoft forces their unsuspecting users into the bully role by annoying the crap out of them with UAC.
Thanks Microsoft, you have once again shown us your brilliance, and we are all unworthy in your presence...
Jake Munson
34 Yrs old
And to be fair, I'm almost certain I've seen them do it with their own software too.
I'm just not seeing the problem with this one. =)
I'd like to see Microsoft make UAC /less/ annoying. I have only had limited experience with Vista (about 8 hours with my parent's laptop), and I found it so annoying that I found out the registry hack to turn UAC off so it would quit bothering me every few minutes. Microsoft could give the user the option to always allow a program to run without asking permission anymore (maybe that's already there...I can't remember). And Microsoft could make it easier to turn off UAC, instead of making it a registry hack.
As for disabling it altogether, I wasn't aware how to do it anyway, since (as I mentioned) I like the feature. But I did do a search and found this page (http://www.petri.co.il/disable_uac_in_windows_vist...) which talks about several ways to do it - one of them being done through the registry. I haven't tried them, so obviously I cannot vouch for their utility.
What would I do to get vendors to stop using admin account feature because they're lazy (and like you mentioned earlier, this includes some Microsoft products)? Like I mentioned in my blog post, I'd use some of my billions in the bank to pressure vendors through partnership channels, targeted advertising, incentives, etc. I'd combine that kind of campaign with a toned down, less annoying, UAC.
Microsoft's solution was to make UAC as annoying as hell, so that the users would pressure the vendors, and Microsoft wouldn't have to do it themselves.
vista the worst project of Microsoft
CoolJJ