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Scherererer
Created : 03 December 2006
 

Quarrels with UAC

My battle against the greatest evil
I have installed the final 64 bit build of Vista that has been released to manufacturers. It is very pretty. Very very very very pretty.

But! An evil still lurks within! Thy name: UAC. I knew there was trouble once i figured out that it was the same acronym as the United Aerospace Corporation from DOOM. For those that don't know, UAC stands for User Access Control. It is a system in place that denies programs file access that aren't running as administrator except to very specific locations. Additionally, it does not inform you of such denial, unless the program has a specific (and cryptic) post-build event in it, or it has the word "setup" or "update" in the name.

Battles:

-the Battle of Installation: It becomes very difficult to test if an MSI (MicroSoft Installer) that i've programmed is running properly when every time i try and install/uninstall it asks if its ok for me to let it uninstall/install itself. Victory: Mircosoft
-the Battle of RegKeys: A simple program that a friend of mine created that requires reading a few regkeys becomes blocked without the cryptic post-build line Ongoing
-the Battle of Trillian: I was wondering why trillian wasn't saving any of my settings: then it came to me! UAC was blocking trillian from saving its own configuration files! Run as admin made short work of that Victory: Me

... the saga continues ...

Yes, you can disable UAC painlessly but, I dont' do it because I'm trying to make sure that my programs work for all those that don't have it disabled. It may be a pain, but it is one that I will endure and fight till the end! When more built-for-vista applications come out I'm sure it will become less and less of a problem, but for now, the war wages on!

 

Comments
Monday, 04 December 2006, 05:40
HoboBen
It is very pretty. Very very very very pretty.


I disagree - my eyes hurt!
Monday, 04 December 2006, 14:51
hyruleknight
 		i perfer the Mac OS X look and ubuntu. and plus that eats up memory. which ain't cheap for me
Friday, 15 December 2006, 22:14
techzorcism
 		UAC = the evilness

btw I started working on another project so i'm taking a break from trying to get UAC to like my program.