Vista - I truly deeply dislike the uac...

Hello,

I bought an Acer E1400 and decided to turn the uac off. This past weekend I tried moving a text file I had typed using Notepadlite on a WinXP hard drive located in an external usb case to my new Vista computer. The Vista machine said I didn't have permission. (The WinXP hard drive is from my previous machine, the motherboard and power supply failed. So I am copying over files I want to keep. The older drive is clean of mal-ware and viruses.)

Weird I thought. Booted up my winxp laptop and did some web searches. That is when I found out about the UAC and 'run as Admin'.

Well, I am the only user, only admin on my computer.

I did use the 'escalate' permission button, still wouldn't do it. 'Try Again' just wore out my mouse button fingers...

After I turned the UAC off, I managed to copy the file over. There are still files it wont let me copy over.

I read on several web sites that turning the UAC off prevents the firewall and anti-virus from updating. Well, I use Zone Alarm and AVG free, they update fine. So the warnings must be referring to the Windows firewall and Defender.

After 20 plus years of being an admin, this is the first time I almost tossed a computer out the nearest window of a building. My experience includes Crays all the way 'down' to a Sinclair ZX-81.

I feel that computer security is important, but that the UAC is poorly implemented.

I have read that Windows 7 will change the UAC... is there some legal way to get the 'better' UAC that will be included in Windows 7 ?

Thanks,

Ah, the nice book I bought at the bookstore mentions a free program from Microsoft called Windows Easy Transfer.

Hello JimJoe,

I think the problem that you are seeing is not so much a UAC issue as a NTFS permissions one.

As the contents of your external drive were written from within XP (and I assume an administrator account) vista will default to only giving the Administrator group read/write permissions to the files on the external drive.

If you take ownership of the drive and add your specific user name to the permissions for the drive, (give yourself full permissions, and allow the rights to cascade down through the file system), you will be able to access them without issue with the UAC switched on.

due to the nature of the UAC and NTFS this is an annoying side effect of the UAC, and the dual token methodology, it is exacerbated by the fact that Explorer does not prompt for elevation for access to files other than executables.

If you check the permissions on the files on the external you should see an unknown user as owner, which is the remnant of the rights added in XP. This problem is one I have seen since NT days where drives are moved between systems, but of course the UAC does not help matters

Here JimJoe, you may well be interested in this;

Disable annoying Vista UAC popups with TweakUAC (FREE)

barman58, that is possible as I have encountered 'cannot copy file' messages while copying files between XP computers on my local network.

sassofalco, thanks. I have heard of tweakuac.

As for UAC itself, I still feel that it could have been better implemented. Unix and other systems have done user and admin rights for decades now and done it rather well. It would be nice if MS would implement something better than UAC that still dealt with user permissions.

The changes that MS have implemented to UAC for the new windows 7 allows far more control, for the more advanced user, who will actually be more likely to use it that the newcomer, who needs it more.

It like all security mechanisms is a compromise the less intrusive it is the less effective it it. with the Windows 7 modifications it does give the user more control over what is notified.

I come from networking environments where the norm was for an admin to run as a standard user, and "run as" admin only where required. Because of this I find UAC to be a benefit, but for those used to running as admin all the time, especially those only used to the defaults set for XP, I can understand the difficulties.

I agree that something needs to be added to NTFS permissions to enable the better use of external portable devices and the mutl-ownership issues due to more multboot systems. I run Vista and Two Windows 7 installations all sharing the same data drive so am well aware of the confusing nature of permissions which would be solved If the same user could exist on all three systems.

Well, I activated the real admin account, made sure UAC was disabled, but still cannot copy some files from the USB case WinXP drive to my Vista drive. Win-Zips, a few executable install programs, and a number of Campaign Cartographer drawing files wont copy over. Around 700 out of 2,000 files wont copy.

I did try to use the Easy File Transfer program; however, it appears to want me to run it on my WinXP computer then run it on Vista. I have my Vista machine on a linksys 5 port ethernet hub, wired. The WinXP hard drive is using a USB connetion to the Vista computer. The Easy Transfer program wants me to run a copy of it on the WinXP computer. Cannot do it as my WinXP desktop motherboard has failed. I tried running the USBed WinXP hard drive on my WinXP laptop, and having Easy Transfer look for the laptop. It couldn't find it.

I then unplugged my internet connection, turned off my firewalls on both computers, and Easy Transfer still could only find the Vista computer.

I haven't tried running the Easy Transfer program on the laptop yet.

Any suggestions to get this file transfer to work ?

Thanks,

Hi JimJoe,

This is strange as the hidden Administrator should be able to copy anything attached to the system.

What I have seen with transferred drives on rare occasions is files which have NO permissions whatsoever assigned - the permissions section is totally blank - in these occasions the normal permissions cascade system does not work and they have to have suitable permissions set on a folder by folder basis, (and even file by file on occasion).

You may want to check that the administrators group has permissions on a sample of the files that refuse to copy. If not you may have to take control of each folder and assign required permissions.

The normal cause for this, in my experience, is where a previous Admin on a network has for some reason removed the admin group from the files, but why it would happen in a case like yours I have yet to work out, although I have seen this .

With regards to the Transfer tool, this is designed as a two part process - Save on old OS and recover on new OS, I have no real experience of using this so cannot say if there is a way of applying it to your issue.

I did try to edit the permissions on the entire external drive, I mounted it as a network drive and gave real admin Full Control and set it for the drive and all child folders. The files that wont copy over, I couldn't change the permissions on them.

I got a 'retry or cancel' button. Retry didn't help.

Hi JimJoe,

Have you tried going into Safe mode with networking - logging in as the hidden administrator and copying the files, or setting permissions, that way. That will sometimes work with vista when nothing else will