Current Opinion on Windows User Account Control

[davej99]

Basically UAC nagging is driving me nuts in general and in particular because it is blocking Buffalo's NAS finder at startup. Are there really significant risks in switching it off?

[pctech]

IMO not really if you have AV and a firewall.

[kinmel]

It was the first thing I turned off and I have had no problems of any kind (so far  )

[zappaDPJ]

I switched it off in Vista pretty quickly but I must admit I still have it running in 7 as it's not giving me any problems. If you are the sole user and you're adequately protected I don't see any reason why you shouldn't switch it off.

[davej99]

Thanks, for such a quickfire answer fellow netters. Have Router firewall and MS security essentials, so I think I will chance it. Have always thought it was MS's making users responsible for the consequences all the security holes.

[Technical Ben]

The only problem I encountered was trying to get my files of my XP HDD. I;m not sure if it's down to UAC (sounds like it was) but it kept saying "You do not have permission/ownership of this drive/file". Every time I had to click "take ownership" and it never worked properly. Took ages to get my backups off the drive, I think some are lost forever.

[esh]

Basically UAC nagging is driving me nuts in general and in particular because it is blocking Buffalo's NAS finder at startup. Are there really significant risks in switching it off?

This is a problem with the Buffalo software and you should nag them to fix it (or at least check they haven't got an updated version?)

UAC as a security layer is there only to inform you of what software is doing, and hence only adds as much security as the user cares to be safe and check the messages it produces. I had some old Logitech keyboard software that did the exact same issue, I just removed the keyboard rather than UAC though. I like to know what's going on.