I never thought it was possible, but as it turns out, Microsoft has managed to produce some pretty good commercials for its brand new operating system, Windows 7. They are quite product-oriented, and carry the slogan "I'm a PC and Windows 7 was my idea".
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Member since:2007-02-17
That is not correct. Sudo/policykit in OSX and linux do not work like the UAC. First of all sudo on Linux is a token based system where you have super rights for a limited time and can do several superuser functions without getting prompted for the password again. Both OSX and Linux only prompt you to escalate rights when its something that will affect the system, UAC asks you to escalate even if its something only affecting you, which is silly. Also the user is still an admin on the machine meaning that UAC is only prompting the user to escalate privileges and not asking for a password to escalate privileges unless the user is not specifically set up as admin, which by default they are. UAC and sudo are not the same, there are subtle differences mostly due to culture and differences in architecture but if you've used both the differences would be very apparent.
Member since:2005-07-06
I've not had any experience with Vista, but I've been using Windows 7 for a number of months now (with the UAC slider turned all the way up) and only get prompted when installing software. Can you give an example of when it would prompt for user settings?
Member since:2005-08-07
Auzy astroturfed...
Not even remotely close to being the same thing.
I can't speak about policykit, but I know at least in Ubuntu when I get hit by sudo and have to elevate permissions I get that password request--which proves that I have rights to the system. Moreover it remembers that I have elevated rights for awhile, so I can get whatever it was I was trying to do done.
UAC just looks over at me through bleary eyes and asks: "Are you sure you want to do that?" Then once I've told it that, yes I know that I'm performing a potentially dangerous system task, that might require elevated permissions to be granted--it doesn't ask me to authenticate myself. It just hits me up with several more warnings as I go along, never once asking me to prove I have the right to perform these potentially dangerous actions.
Yes, with sudo may be a bit annoying to have to play "Simon says," but at least the OS is aware that I AM Simon! UAC is a joke.
Auzy astroturfed...
How quickly they forget...
http://www.osnews.com/story/19620/_Vista_s_UAC_Security_Prompt_Was_...
Read the article and you'll see quite clearly that yes, UAC was designed to irritate you, not to be functional.
--bornagainpenguin
Member since:2009-02-19
Seconded!
Sudo and su in Linux work much better, both because they actually require you to authenticate, and because they're process-based -- meaning that, after I launch a process as root, I don't get bothered again based on what that process does. If I felt like it, I could launch an xterm as root using sudo when I log in, and whenever I needed to perform an administration task, I could just use that xterm, and it'd never bother me for authentication again. Equally, if I know I'm going to be performing a lot of administration tasks, I can just log in as root; if I do that, the system never even bothers me.
Member since:2008-11-20
Member since:2006-02-02
Windows 7 UAC is a bit better tuned-- Not sure I'm happy about an application being able to retune it silently, but that's fixable.
UAC is more like interactive SElinux-- Even if you're root, it's going to ask if you're certain you want to do that.
Now, if you remove the "Administrator" flag (ie, take yourself out of the 'wheel' group) from your account, then UAC requires you to authenticate as someone with privilege.
For supporting our (non-privileged) users, this is very useful, as we get prompted for our username/password when doing administration, instead of having to either log out and back in, or having to do fancy "runas" tricks.
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Member since:
2008-01-20
Err.. You do realise OSX and Linux also have UAC, but they call it sudo/policykit. Its just as annoying, except that it prompts you for your username and password. Same thing pretty much. And because its missing in Windows XP, in windows XP, if a hacker compromises one of the programs you are using, boom, every account is compromised, and it could happily rootkit the entire OS. But I guess you are one of those people who will blame Microsoft if your computer starts crashing after your IRC client got hacked?
Also Microsoft offers "Microsoft Security essentials" free to download. They probably would have included it, but they are getting sued left right and centre for anti-trust violations (because instead of sucking less, companies like opera prefer to complain). Microsoft security essentials can be installed for free in XP mode too (and I'd imagine Microsoft will probably integrate it into the installation process to automatically install in both too). You don't need XP mode really either, because unlike Linux and OSX, Windows 7 has excellent backwards compatibility, and is still capable of running many programs designed in 1998. Just because new editions of Windows don't constantly break older application's (unlike Windows/Linux upgrades do), doesn't mean it isn't more useful to developers either.
And 64bit support I don't think is that bad. OSX its good, but 3rd party hardware support is shockingly bad, and the entire linux filesystem is a mess. I agree I would like to see the Program files directories merged, but overall, 32bit/64bit support I feel works well.
You also are forgetting features such as Bitlocker to go (which is VERY useful to enterprises, and those networks of yours) and homegroups. In fact, clearly, you aren't as professional a user as you claim, if you can't recognise many changes aren't cosmetic. Because there are plenty of features improved under the hood. In fact, Apple charges money for even small updates, and I don't see you complaining about that (Windows users will get the primary new feature of Snow leopard for free, OpenCL). And a huge amount of their improvements were actually developed by the open source community, they simply take credit for it (such as the improvements to windows sharing).
So 2 words, "you fail". And you fail even more as an admin, if you believe that UAC is nothing more then an annoyance.