Comments on: Ask the expert: should I turn off UAC?

By: Cueball

Cueball — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 10:53:26 +0000

@Joe Gamer
I’m not so sure any more. Up until a couple of years ago I was definitely of the ‘security is an expensive prophelactic for people who shouldn’t be allowed on the net’ mindset. But CPU cycles are cheap these days, UAC is free and even reputable websites get hacked and infected with drive-by code. I like to know what’s trying to access my machine, and UAC is one (imperfect) way of doing that.

@Makius
Was a pleasure – the more questions like this I get the more fun my job is.

By: Makius

Makius — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 08:39:12 +0000

WOW! Thanks for answering my GPU vs CPU thermal rating question! I didn’t think it would actually get chosen. And the explanation makes sense. Much appreciated Adam/PCG!

-Makius

By: Joe Gamer

Joe Gamer — Wed, 30 Jun 2010 00:49:45 +0000

UAC
For me, Off, if it gets broke I can fix it. For everyone else I know who may be knocking on my door because “Facebook’s not working on the magic picture box”. On, definitely on.

By: bomberforpm

bomberforpm — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 21:00:07 +0000

Im 50/50 on this one…..

UAC is a great tool should it suit your needs and its a great way for the less geekys of us to matain a decent, and simple security solution………..BUT

90% of the people on the webby and who read the mag are purley here for the games and the modding, and when it comes to this UAC is just a pain in the back side.

Personally i have it offline, but i can see its virtue…….even if its poorly conceved.

By: yxxxx

yxxxx — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 20:35:39 +0000

I have always left uac on. I like the extra protection it affords particularly on the family pc.
on my laptop i also have it turned on but have reduced the level at which it goes off so pop ups are decreased.

I think turning it off is just asking for trouble and cant say it has ever really caused me any problems with games.

By: spooky

spooky — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 17:05:06 +0000

The first thing i do is turn off UAC on a fresh system. I hate it sooo much. I cant do anything with out clicking OK 30 times.

By: Vardant

Vardant — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 15:36:29 +0000

Even though UAC is not that intrusive in Win7 as was in Vista, it is still too much for my taste.

By: trooperdx3117

trooperdx3117 — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 14:54:19 +0000

Im definitely a proponent of turning off the UAC, I found when I first got Vista that with Thief: the dark project I couldn’t run the game without downloading some fan made patches and literally re-writing the .exe and then I had to scour the internet for the codecs in order to run the games cutscenes, the same thing again with System Shock 2 only there I couldn’t even watch the cutscenes and the game crashed every 15 minutes. However once I turned off UAC I found that I could install both games no problem with minimal work and they were much more stable, as well as that I found that the old Fallout games would work properly without UAC turned on. The only problem with turning it off is that in some cases you may have to re-install some of your games because off the way that the UAC virtualises some of the files for your games when installing.

By: PeterTechGuy

PeterTechGuy — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 13:25:29 +0000

UAC, hmm… I always have UAC off for Vista and only notify when programs try to make changes on my computer but don’t dim desktop on Win7.

By: StingingVelvet

StingingVelvet — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 13:10:03 +0000

Hmmm… I still have UAC off today because of all the problems with games it causes. I can’t tell you how many times I have read threads where someone couldn’t get an old game to boot or install and it ended up being UAC.

I guess I could give it another go under Win7 though… it was the first thing I turned off when I installed it.