Microsoft to rework Windows 7 UAC to be less annoying
The Engineering Windows 7 blog sheds more light as to what we can expect in Windows 7. This blog post was a particularly interesting one because it addresses a feature that I’m sure every Vista user found annoying at some point: User Access Control. Ben Fathi goes over why they introduced the UAC in the first place, how it’s evolved over the years, and the impact it has had on the consumer and software community. You can get the whole scoop here.
For the most part, Microsoft considered the introduction of the UAC concept as a success. Although UAC had a rough start, data from their Customer Improvement Program shows that the number of prompts have dropped by 80%. This is due to the time required for software engineers to rewrite their programs so that less administrative tasks are performed, therefore requiring less UAC prompts. One interesting fact that nobody noticed is that Windows Vista has driven the entire software market to create programs that are less likely to perform administrative actions, therefore reducing the risk of damage done by malicious software since users are more likely to notice a UAC prompt if they still have it enabled today.
Based on what we’ve learned from our data and feedback we need to address several key issues in Windows 7:
- Reduce unnecessary or duplicated prompts in Windows and the ecosystem, such that critical prompts can be more easily identified.
- Enable our customers to be more confident that they are in control of their systems.
- Make prompts informative such that people can make more confident choices.
- Provide better and more obvious control over the mechanism.
We still want to provide you control over what changes can happen to your system, but we want to provide you a better overall experience. We believe this can be achieved by focusing on two key principles. 1) Broaden the control you have over the UAC notifications. We will continue to give you control over the changes made to your system, but in Windows 7, we will also provide options such that when you use the system as an administrator you can determine the range of notifications that you receive. 2) Provide additional and more relevant information in the user interface. We will improve the dialog UI so that you can better understand and make more informed choices. We’ve already run new design concepts based on this principle through our in-house usability testing and we’ve seen very positive results. 83% of participants could provide specific details about why they were seeing the dialog. Participants preferred the new concepts because they are “simple”, “highlight verified publishers,” “provide the file origin,” and “ask a meaningful question.”
One problem that they will directly address is the double-prompts that occur when IE’s security prompt and UAC activate at the same time.
Do you guys find UAC that annoying, and has it helped you security-wise in any way compared to XP?
[Source: Engineering Windows 7]
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Tags: engineering windows 7, uac, user access control, windows 7, windows 7 uac, windows 7 user access control
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8 Responses to “Microsoft to rework Windows 7 UAC to be less annoying”
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I’ve disabled UAC for good on Vista; hopefully they’ll get it right in Windows 7.
Eric´s last blog post..SmackBook with Leopard Spaces
I used to have it disabled, but a few months ago I’ve re-enabled it and it’s really not that bad. It only sucks when you need to install something and realize that it’s not working because you forgot to “Run as Administrator”
Albert´s last blog post..Download and Install Windows Vista MUI (language) packs for all versions of Windows Vista
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[...] Microsoft to rework Windows 7 UAC to be less annoying The Engineering Windows 7 blog sheds more light as to what we can expect… [...]
[...] Microsoft to rework Windows 7 UAC to be less annoying The Engineering Windows 7 blog sheds more light as to what we can expect… [...]
[...] Microsoft to rework Windows 7 UAC to be less annoying The Engineering Windows 7 blog sheds more light as to what we can expect… [...]