UAC issues

Hey all,

What exactly is UAC? Is it absolutely necessary to have on your computer? Will it totally kill me to not have it running?

I ask these questions because I need to have it disabled to run a certain program from my company because of the usage of ICMPv4,v6 echo/pinging that it disables.

Is there a work around to enable these settings without disabling UAC?

Also the last question would be that it seems like when I disable the UAC, I have security that is the same as windows XP. Is that true??

Any help would be greatly appreciated!!!

Thanks,
Murr

Hey Murr,

UAC was built to stop virus`s and malware from taking control of the entire system.

Checkout these Threads for more information on UAC:
Vista Forums - Threads Tagged with uac

User Account Control (UAC)

As far as I am aware, UAC doesn't disable ICMP. But the Windows firewall does by default. I think all you have to do is enable ICMP echo requests through the firewall.

Someone will correct me if I'm wrong.......

Programs, Malware and Rootkits try to install without the user intervention, and try to run with full Admin rights.
UAC sees these and stops the install untill the user ok's and authorizes them(or not).
Most newer programs are being written to run in restricted user rights, So any program- good or bad that requests admin rights has the ability to corrupt/damage your system, and personally I like to know what's trying to run on my system.

To remove UAC is like leaving the deadbolt on house disengaged because it takes twice as long then just locking the knob.

Hi Buffalo,

UAC is designed to stop anything from automatically escalating its privilege level without your consent but your right it has nothing todo with Windows Firewall

However Windows Firewall does not block ICMP by default (See ICMP Screenshot below) there are other ICMP options it blocks but you change the Network location by Clicking Customize in the Network and Sharing Center (see Customize Screenshot) or use the Windows Firewall with Advanced Security under Administrative Tools in Control Panel

Steven

Well yes this true what you all have been saying except for the fact that when you enable the ICMP pinging/echo requests I still cannot run my software that is spefically designed to use a ICMP pinging/echo request protocol. By then disabling the UAC it was able to work fine...is there something that I am drastically missing? Because it would seem like to me after all my testing on this subject the UAC blocks the echo request.

Please let me know if I am way off or not.

One other quick question is that by turning off UAC does it put the system in a XP style of security??

Thanks all,
Murr

Or, if you think about it carefully, UAC is blocking the *program* from making the ECHO request in the first place - not blocking it at the network layer, but blocking the application at the physical layer.

Try running the application with administrative privileges...

Ok that would seem like a good idea but when I get to the application and right click on it to run as admin there is no tab to run as admin. Any suggestions?

Murr

not a tab, when you right click on the shortcut to the application, the context menu shows a "run as administrator".

If you want to make the application run as administrator permanently, then what you do instead is right click on the program / shortcut, select the compatibility tab, and at the bottom is the option to run as administrator.

But I would try running it *once* as administrator using the first method to see if it works or not.

Also, your app may actually be calling another application to actually make the ECHO request....

Yes not a tab is correct, wrong usage of the context menu. When the context menu is up tho there is no option to run as administrator.

I believe this is because the software already acts as an admin. Or that is how it was originally designed to work on an XP system.

Tho the problem could be in that when we wrote this software it was in XP compared to vista, so the integrations between the two are a little interesting.