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Vista Countdown: 4 Days - Your Moment of Zen
Today seemed like it was gonna be a low-buzz day for Vista's impending retail release, until I came across this tidbit: Microsoft chairman Bill Gates is scheduled to appear on The Daily Show With Jon Stewart on Monday, just an hour before Vista's midnight launch. As Candace Lombardi over at CNet points out, John Hodgman, who plays the PC on Apple's "I'm a Mac" ads, is a regular Daily Show contributor. I really hope Stewart & Co. can get the two together for some hijinks. We'll be sure to post some video as soon as we can get our little paws on it.In other news, remember that huffing and puffing over Vista's copious DRM cruft and the response on Microsoft's Vista blog? Well, of course there's now a response-to-the-response. Peter Gutmann, who wrote the original "Cost Analysis of Windows Vista Content Protection" to which the Vista blog post was in reply, has added an addendum to the original article in, er, reply. Gutmann calls Microsoft's response "PR spin" and makes a pretty strong case, but I'll leave it to you to judge for yourselves.
Lastly, a Vista tips from the fine folks over at Lifehacker: How to disable annoying "Need your permission to continue" prompts. To quote our own David Chartier: "What happens when you try to save your users from your own security and usability mistakes over the last 15 years or so? Apparently, they revolt and hurl your solutions right back in your face."
In case you're not all caught up, you can check out the previous three days of our Vista Countdown over here.
Comments
7
Subscribe to commentsMatt S.Jan 27th 2007 12:19AM
I dont understand anyone who claims that already "hate" UAC in Vista. People complain that theres not enough security in XP so what does MS do they do something about it and develop new security features. Now everyone complains and "TURNS OFF" this new security feature. Doesnt make sense to me.
Dave ChartierJan 27th 2007 12:24AM
People have a very difficult time giving up security and luxury, apparently even at the expense of their time, sanity, personal finances and precious files. I was honestly floored when I saw that Lifehacker hint about shutting off the access/security warning.
RavensworthJan 27th 2007 2:33AM
There's nothing wrong with security, but UAC is not security. It's just annoying. Try to rename or move a file, even if it's just a picture of a horse your kid drew in paint. WARNING! WARNING! Click OK to continue. You get those stupid popups constantly, every little thing you do. It's insane and makes the OS almost unusable. People are either going to disable it or just click OK out of habit. UAC is very poorly implemented, it's just idiotic.
GrizzlyAdamsJan 27th 2007 1:35AM
Whats with this 4 days wait? My copy of vista just arrived in the post today. Now to find $139 to upgrade to Ultimate... then another $100 to get Vista Home for my parents (2 PCs)
Kevin SeitzJan 27th 2007 4:08AM
Has anyone bothered to look in Local Security Policy? There are settings for UAC, including having administrator accounts automatically upgrade permissions for an operation (meaning no UAC prompt). With this setting, UAC is "off" for administrators but on for standard users. After you do all your software installs, only log in as the standard user unless you have to use the administrator account. This leaves the option available for performing any operation as the standard user (with given credentials) instead of denying the operation and requiring the administrator to log into his/her account. I'd say this is the safest but least annoying alternative to turning UAC completely off. Additionally, I believe the built-in administrator account is not prompted by UAC... but there is a setting in Local Security Policy for that too.
Matt S.Jan 27th 2007 1:13PM
Ravensworth: I believe you are basing what UAC does in the RCs of Vista as what it will do in the final release. As one of the lucky few to recieved a free copy Vista Ultimate for being a beta tester. I have been using it for 2 months now and UAC isnt THAT annoying anymore. And to tell you the truth I think its worth the extra step because say something malious does find its way onto your computer you will have to allow it in UAC for it to install. As I have witnessed twice. Thats if it gets saved in the first place. But you dont allow it, it doesnt get installed and you are protected by an unauthorized access to your computer. Stop complaining Vista is 10x better than XP ever was.
RavensworthJan 29th 2007 2:35AM
That's your opinion, I'll take XP over Vista any day. Besides if you run XP properly (ie not running as an administrator all the time) it's just as secure. My being able to move or rename one of my own files without being assaulted by popups has nothing to do with malware.