UAC Off Means Protected Mode Off

[Martin]

Remember the vulnerability that is in the wild affecting all versions of Internet Explorer from 5 to 8? Internet Explorer 7 and 8 are only affected by the vulnerability if protected mode is off which it is not by default.

Internet Explorer Vulnerability And Temporary Fix

Users who have turned off UAC, the User Account Control, on the other hand need to know that turning off UAC means to also turn off protected mode in their Windows operating system. Good to know I guess.

UAC off = IE protected mode off @ The Experience Blog

[libeco]

Somehow I think there're two types of people who turn UAC off:
- The people who know what they're doing, but are annoyed by that constant bugging. I count myself in this category.
- The people who are annoyed, but don't know what they're doing, but one of theur tech savvy cousins turned UAC off for them.

I think the security vulnerability generally applies to the last category.

[Duckeenie]

Name me any modern OS that allows users to make changes outside their user folder without elevated privileges? Why is it such a big deal for Windows users?

[libeco]

Don't get me wrong, this feature is a very good one for people who do not know what they're doing. I however, am annoyed by the continuous questions, just like I'm annoyed by the password entry screen in Ubuntu. Because of this I appreciate the fact that you can turn UAC off.

[Amanada]

I've got UAC turned off because it's annoying. It's the one thing microsoft has gotten right, but its almost the most annoying.