UAC on Vista is SUPPOSED to annoy you? What?!
Ok, I’ll be the first to admit that I am NOT a Vista fan. In fact I switched to mac BECAUSE of Vista. But this is a level of stupidity that I thought even Microsoft was incapable of. The User Account Control prompt that bothers the hell out of the vast majority of Vista users when they do just about everything, according to David Cross from Microsoft is in fact SUPPOSED to be annoying.
What company developing a system like this WANTS it to be annoying? They say it’s because they wanted to make people aware of the fact that they are making changes to their system. Unfortunately, this implementation is just about as bad as it gets, simply because it’s SO annoying that it makes people either want to shut it off completely, or just ignore what it says, blindly clicking continue repeatedly.
I set up a Vista machine for a daughter of a friend this week, and within a 15 minute time span of the computer setting itself to run Vista for the first time, I was presented with the UAC prompt at least 15 times. After installation was complete, I was presented with it constantly from all different applications. Quickly I began to disregard anything it was saying and just blindly started to click continue.
This is just a bad case of Vista being pushed out the door too early. With some slight tuning to the UAC settings, it could be made MUCH less annoying. For example, copying files to a flash drive. There’s no reason I should have to give UAC permission to copy files from one disk to another, that’s just silly. Installing programs? Sure! Running programs for the first time? Sure! Moving a file around? No. Changing my DESKTOP BACKGROUND? No.
The easiest thing that Microsoft would have done, is to do what they have done best for years. Copy Apple. Ok, Ok, that one might get the Windows fanboys a little up in arms. Sorry, but in this case, copying Apple would be the best thing Microsoft could do. Apple asks for a password when installing programs, and gives you a warning when you first run a program downloaded from the internet, but it’s not intrusive or annoying in the least. It takes a rational approach to security, instead of overcorrecting from XP’s lack of security, to Vista’s excess.
Hopefully Windows 7 will take a more balanced approach than Vista. I find it so sad that an OS that was in heavy development for over 5 years, could be such a colossal flop. XP does almost the same things, with less memory, less processor requirements, and with greater speed and efficiency. What did they spend the 5 years on? Making the UAC just the right level of a hair-pulling annoyance? Making an Aero Glass interface that’s harder to read than the XP interface? So much for progress.
Along with that Vista machine my friend purchased, she also purchased a new 24″ iMac for herself. I set up the Vista machine first, and after it was done she took a look at it. She didn’t regard it as being any different than the XP machine she was used to using, except remarking that the screen was harder to read, and that it seemed to be slower. I explained that the processor and RAM were triple what was in the old machine, but that Vista required a little more, she seemed satisfied with it, but not terribly impressed.
Setting up the iMac was a totally different story though. From just taking it out of the box, the fit and finish of it impressed her. Turning it on, she even seemed to enjoy the setup process, including taking a picture for her login icon. There was no bloatware to remove, no norton internet security blaring updates, no 50 little update pop-ups in the right hand corner. She was up and running searching for a new puppy within 10 minutes. I did have to install XP in boot camp for some of her shockwave.com games and netflix instant watch, but something tells me that she’ll be spending a lot more time in OS X.