Originally posted by: greyeyezz
Originally posted by: mechBgon
Originally posted by: Shawn
No Vista problems here.
Ditto. Running a
Standard account mostly. I didn't attempt to install any beta drivers, I just used what Vista comes with.
Comment:
UAC has been a source of bleating from people who (for some reason) want their Vista to behave like a glorified Windows98, but I think it's a feature whose time has come. Having used the low-rights approach on WinXP Pro and Win2000, I find Vista makes it easier. Give it a chance, people... it's like seatbelts in your car. You might have to fasten them 5,000 times before they save you from serious harm one day.
Don't disable UAC lightly.
UAC is designed for people who don't follow common sence when working with the computer. UAC is an un-needed layer for people that use their computer properly, keep their AV up to date, and practice proper security protocols. I've never run a resident anti-spyware program. No need to.
I consider least-privilege operation to be part of "proper security protocols." Common sense does not always help. Antivirus software can fail to detect stuff. Patches don't arrive in time to save you when it's a zero-day exploit, which there seem to be more of all the time.
Point in case: I worked at a non-profit agency. I was the IT guy. I set the browser homepage on the computers to our own agency's website, hosted on Interland's servers. Because I figured it would be
safe :roll:
Interland got hacked. Our own website was trying to feed malware to our own computers every time someone opened a browser. So much for the merits of common sense. As luck would have it, the malware was something that VirusScan Enterprise recognized. But if VirusScan hadn't recognized it, it still would've failed
because the computer users were not Admins. Gee, maybe that was a smart thing, huh? A proactive defense that would succeed where the reactive measures failed?
That scenario was repeated recently at the Dolphins Stadium website leading up to the SuperBowl (
link).
Another instance: Yahoo's site was still malignant after
at least four days (
link, dunno if they entirely fixed this yet), and I could go dredge up more. Asus.com, HP.com, CircuitCity, Neowin, The Register, etc. Here's one more for good measure:
Ticket site infected by Trojan-Downloader.
I'm sticking with my recommendation. Use UAC, and use a Standard account. Whatever the bad guys have up their sleeve in the future, you can add proactive measures to your reactive ones.
More reading:
leading rootkit researcher discussing the merit of UAC.