Request for Windows 8 – Bring back secure UAC

So this will sound really crazy but I was talking to my cousin and he reminded me of something i had forgotten that I believe Windows 8 needed.

UAC – User Account Control.

UAC is defined as the following:

User Account Control (UAC) is a technology and security infrastructure introduced with Microsoft’s Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 operating systems, with a more relaxed version also present in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 . It aims to improve the security of Microsoft Windows by limiting application software to standard user privileges until an administrator authorizes an increase or elevation. In this way, only applications trusted by the user may receive administrative privileges, and malware should be kept from compromising the operating system. In other words, a user account may have administrator privileges assigned to it, but applications that the user runs do not inherit those privileges unless they are approved beforehand or the user explicitly authorizes it.

We should all know the history of UAC with Vista.. It was intrusive and there was a revolt because a lot of users felt that it made the system unwieldy and largely unusable.

Users got really frustrated, turned it off and then that defeated the purpose all together.

In Windows 7 the process is similar but much less intrusive.

I do think however that for Windows 8, there needs to be a password prompt for the installation of new software on the desktop. The truth is, whether it’s inconveninet or not, people need to think about what they are installing when they install it.

In addition, only the admin of a PC should be able to install anything on it even if he or she walks away from their session for a while.

Thought should be given to further refining the process but I still think that it makes more sense to be more secure…