UAC in Win 7

[DamianInRochester]

Is it still required to have UAC off in windows 7 with most Rockwell software? Does it really make a difference anymore?

 

[The Plc Kid]

Rockwell says on many recent versions of it's warez that they are win 7 compatible that says to me that UAC works in the new versions as it is a native and deeply hooked feature of win 7 but I have not tested this myself.

Why would you want it on anyway? It is just a PITA and really does not secure anything. It is so easy to defeat UAC with a myriad of 2 stage attacks it is a joke.

There are much better ways to secure you machine from self executing code than UAC.

 

[brendan.buchan]

First thing I do on any Win7 PC I have is turn off UAC.

 

[DamianInRochester]

Why would you want it on anyway? It is just a PITA and really does not secure anything. It is so easy to defeat UAC with a myriad of 2 stage attacks it is a joke.

There are much better ways to secure you machine from self executing code than UAC.

Thanks PLC Kid. As far as why I would want it on.......... Honestly, I don't know enough about it to even know what to want. So I will just trust your judgment regarding its usefulness. Somewhere I had been given the impression that it wasn't so much a security thing as it was just preventing poorly programmed applications from overwriting stuff they shouldn't. I guess I am curious why Rockwell can't write their software such that the UAC setting doesn't matter. Maybe they have a good reason, but why for example don't I have to worry about this with say Step 7?

 

[The Plc Kid]

UAC's true purpose is to achieve the principle of least privilege and it does this by only elevating accounts to admin level when the correct credentials are given.

If your account is a standard user or power user and your try to do something that needs admin rights then you have to elevate your credentials using uac. In a sense it is really no different then doing a "run as admin command" but uac is automatic and application aware.

If your account is a admin group account then you don't have to enter credential you just have to say Ok when the uac prompt comes up. The only account in vista and win 7 that is not ran through uac is the built in administrator account which is hidden and disabled by default and many network adims on a domain enviroment delete this account for this reason but if active directory ever screws up and you computer/domain credentials don't line up you will find your self reimaging a machine and adding back to active directory.

Best to have the administrator account enabled but with a very strong password like 16 characters or better and lock it away and never use it. For our line of work make yourslef a admin group account and disable UAC to reduce headaches.

We use this as a uac replacemnt in most enviroments http://www.faronics.com/enterprise/anti-executable/

 

[DamianInRochester]

UAC's true purpose is to achieve the principle of least privilege and it does this by only elevating accounts to admin level when the correct credentials are given.

If your account is a standard user or power user and your try to do something that needs admin rights then you have to elevate your credentials using uac. In a sense it is really no different then doing a "run as admin command" but uac is automatic and application aware.

If your account is a admin group account then you don't have to enter credential you just have to say Ok when the uac prompt comes up. The only account in vista and win 7 that is not ran through uac is the built in administrator account which is hidden and disabled by default and many network adims on a domain enviroment delete this account for this reason but if active directory ever screws up and you computer/domain credentials don't line up you will find your self reimaging a machine and adding back to active directory.

Best to have the administrator account enabled but with a very strong password like 16 characters or better and lock it away and never use it. For our line of work make yourslef a admin group account and disable UAC to reduce headaches.

We use this as a uac replacemnt in most enviroments http://www.faronics.com/enterprise/anti-executable/

Thanks again! Great explanation.