As a system administrator you sometimes may need to analyze the running processes. Not only to make sure that no unknown processes are running, but also to make sure they are running with the correct rights. While you could use a program like the Windows Task Manager, or the advanced Process Explorer for that, you [...]

Categories: Software, Windows

Microsoft introduced the User Account Control (UAC) feature in Windows Vista. The security feature quickly became a nuisance for Vista users, as it simply displayed to many prompts to users as there were no options to remember settings or reduce the level for trustworthy programs. Microsoft has toned down the feature in Windows 7, where [...]

Categories: Software, Windows

Microsoft have warned of a critical vulnerability in Windows Shell, caused when parsing .lnk shortcuts that can automatically launch a malicious program through use of a specially crafted shortcut. The vulnerability afcects all versions of Windows including XP and Windows 7.   On Windows 7 the exploit can bypass the operating system’s security as it does not [...]

Categories: Microsoft, Windows

The number of UAC prompts in Windows 7 has been reduced significantly in Windows 7 by Microsoft. To increase security applications are limited to standard user privileges in Windows Vista and Windows 7. The UAC prompt informs the user if an application requires elevated privileges to run. This is especially helpful if new applications have [...]

Categories: Software, Tutorials Basic, Windows

If you are a Windows XP user who recently switched to Windows 7 you must have been getting annoyed by the blacking out of the screen every time the User Account Control kicks in. Microsoft calls this dimming the screen. What actually is happening is that the Windows dims the screen to bring the user’s [...]

Categories: Software, Windows

After dabbling around with several music players in Windows 7 I finally decided to stick with AIMP2. The uninstallation of Winamp turned out to be interesting. The uninstaller noted that not all files in the Winamp folder could be deleted during installation. A quick check revealed that the folder contained the files elevator.exe, elevatorps.dll and [...]

Categories: Security

Would you trust a company that has published software programs in the past that were listed in adware and spyware databases like Site Advisor, Host Files, Emsisoft, Symantec or Malwarebytes? Would you install a new security product released by that company that replaces Windows Vista’s User Account Control, one of the main security components in [...]

Categories: Software, Windows

Microsoft has released a Knowledgebase article that explains how users can disable UAC, that is the User Account Control, for selected applications in Windows Vista. This solution requires an administrator account and the Application Compatibility Toolkit which can be downloaded from Microsoft directly.

Categories: Operating Systems, Software, Windows

UAC is the Windows Vista User Account Control. UAC is basically another way to protect the computer from the user, or the user from himself. Much like those ‘Do you really want to delete this file ?’ questions UAC asks the user to give an application additional privileges even if he is currently logged on as the administrator. So, it is basically asking the user the question ‘Do you really want to execute the following application ?’.

Categories: Operating Systems, Windows