The_Unbeliever
Honorary Master
Original post was found here
There is one thing about Vista though that, despite being in place to ensure system stability and halt the spread of viruses, will undoubtedly result in more support calls than ever. LUA: Limited User Account.
Administrator accounts run as shadow regular user accounts unless and until privileges are requested. Then Vista blues out the screen (a la the grey that XP does when you hit Start->Shutdown) and pops up a dialog asking the user to confirm the action is authorized. If you decline authorization, the program has no access beyond that of a regular user.
There are two problems with that. Firstly, even changing the system time requires privilege elevation, as well as opening, copying, editing, replacing, or whatever e.g. boot.ini, plus software installation, plus… I could go on, but I’m sure several readers know what I’m talking about if they’ve ever tried to treat their work computer like their home computer. (Think of that, on your home computer, as an administrator!) If you go through Windows, it pops up a regular confirmation dialog, then a notice that because LUA is on you’ll have to click okay at the next screen click okay to continue, then the LUA dialog, then finally the regular confirmation dialog again. Every. F’ing. Time.
Secondly, consider all the setup programs that check for admin rights. Because the administrator group token isn’t attached to the session unless and until it’s requested, many of these programs will wrongly assume you’re not an administrator and fail. And even if it doesn’t… I haven’t seen documentation on the scope of LUA exemption: per process? per process tree? per action? is there a time limit? Regardless, you’ll see at least one LUA dialog. And if you’re a click-through fanatic like my friend Greg, and don’t know what it is or how to turn it off, you’ll go “Aaaaaaagh yes you stupid ****ing piece of **** go!” and fling your ‘puter against the wall. Which results in: 1 support call.
*sigh*
There is one thing about Vista though that, despite being in place to ensure system stability and halt the spread of viruses, will undoubtedly result in more support calls than ever. LUA: Limited User Account.
Administrator accounts run as shadow regular user accounts unless and until privileges are requested. Then Vista blues out the screen (a la the grey that XP does when you hit Start->Shutdown) and pops up a dialog asking the user to confirm the action is authorized. If you decline authorization, the program has no access beyond that of a regular user.
There are two problems with that. Firstly, even changing the system time requires privilege elevation, as well as opening, copying, editing, replacing, or whatever e.g. boot.ini, plus software installation, plus… I could go on, but I’m sure several readers know what I’m talking about if they’ve ever tried to treat their work computer like their home computer. (Think of that, on your home computer, as an administrator!) If you go through Windows, it pops up a regular confirmation dialog, then a notice that because LUA is on you’ll have to click okay at the next screen click okay to continue, then the LUA dialog, then finally the regular confirmation dialog again. Every. F’ing. Time.
Secondly, consider all the setup programs that check for admin rights. Because the administrator group token isn’t attached to the session unless and until it’s requested, many of these programs will wrongly assume you’re not an administrator and fail. And even if it doesn’t… I haven’t seen documentation on the scope of LUA exemption: per process? per process tree? per action? is there a time limit? Regardless, you’ll see at least one LUA dialog. And if you’re a click-through fanatic like my friend Greg, and don’t know what it is or how to turn it off, you’ll go “Aaaaaaagh yes you stupid ****ing piece of **** go!” and fling your ‘puter against the wall. Which results in: 1 support call.
*sigh*
