UAC popping up on (seemingly) everything

Durzel · 15 Jun 2012 at 11:53

Reinstalled Windows 7 last night and chose "Use recommended settings" on the security popup that comes up once it's finished installing. Can't remember if I had done that on previous installs or whether I chose "Ask me later" or whatever.

Anyway as a consequence of that it seems almost everything I am installing is popping up a UAC message about whether I am happy for something to make changes. Specifically CPU-Z, GPU-Z, RealTemp, even the Intel Rapid Storage Technology system tray thing. A few of the desktop shortcuts have a UAC yellow/blue shield on them too.

It's been quite a while since I installed Windows 7 but my last install didn't do this, I think it only asked me if I was sure whenever I right clicked and "Run as administrator", the rest of the time stuff just ran as normal without popups.

Would this original behaviour mean I must've disabled UAC in my previous install, or have I b0rked something on this new install? What do you lot usually do with UAC?

Yaayuh! · 15 Jun 2012 at 11:55

I created a thread about this a little while ago. I've since gave up and just turned UAC off, i had enough.

[Damien] · 15 Jun 2012 at 12:08

I turn UAC off on every new install. It's on as default though.

God it's so annoying...

theheyes · 15 Jun 2012 at 12:16

The problem is simply that what you're installing requires administrator right to run. That's just the nature of those monitoring utilities.

Durzel · 15 Jun 2012 at 12:31

theheyes said:
The problem is simply that what you're installing requires administrator right to run. That's just the nature of those monitoring utilities.

If it was just during install it wouldn't be such a problem.

Every time I double-click on CPU-Z (already installed) on the desktop it says "Do you want to allow the following program to make changes to your computer". Surely it's not making any changes?

moogle · 15 Jun 2012 at 12:43

Durzel said:
If it was just during install it wouldn't be such a problem.

Every time I double-click on CPU-Z (already installed) on the desktop it says "Do you want to allow the following program to make changes to your computer". Surely it's not making any changes?

It's accessing a low level part of the OS I suspect and that's why it needs admin priviledges.

bignev72 · 15 Jun 2012 at 13:03

Just turn it off. It's really annoying and doesn't really serve much purpose.

theheyes · 15 Jun 2012 at 13:37

bignev72 said:
Just turn it off. It's really annoying and doesn't really serve much purpose.

Actually it serves a very important purpose, unfortunately for fringe cases like this it can be highly annoying.

Technically if it's already installed the required driver then I'm not sure why it would repeatedly generate a UAC prompt, but then there are a number of ways Windows detects that elevation might be required. I'm not really au fait with how CPU-Z works. Are you re-running the executable each time?

Durzel · 15 Jun 2012 at 13:46

I'm just double-clicking the shortcut it creates on the desktop. It does the same for GPU-Z and RealTemp too, as well as the Intel Rapid Storage tray app (iaStorUI?) etc.

bignev72 · 15 Jun 2012 at 15:45

theheyes said:
Actually it serves a very important purpose, unfortunately for fringe cases like this it can be highly annoying.

Technically if it's already installed the required driver then I'm not sure why it would repeatedly generate a UAC prompt, but then there are a number of ways Windows detects that elevation might be required. I'm not really au fait with how CPU-Z works. Are you re-running the executable each time?

It's purpose is what exactly? To ensure that software doesn't make changes to critical parts of your OS right? Except that viruses are clever and can get round this seemingly quite easily. In fact UAC is so annoying that people just click ok without even thinking now.

Just turn it off and use your pc sensibly. If it seems dodgy then it probably is.

cokecan · 15 Jun 2012 at 15:52

bignev72 said:
Except that viruses are clever and can get round this seemingly quite easily

Do you have any proof of this?

Also if your average user ran as a standard user rather than administrator then they wouldn't be able to simply click accept every time the UAC prompt popped up.

It's all well and good saying just use your PC sensibly but even the best of us get caught out from time to time. That extra layer of protection is welcomed in my eyes

Durzel · 15 Jun 2012 at 16:02

Thanks all, just wanted to make sure there wasn't anything inherently broken with my install.. hadn't reinstalled W7 for so long I couldn't remember how intrusive UAC was.

theheyes · 15 Jun 2012 at 16:04

Well technically UAC itself is a convenience feature, and avoids you having to "Run as..." like you had to do with XP. The difference is that Vista and Windows 7 are configured more securely by default.

Getting "around" UAC isn't really a problem because it's not a security feature, although its implementation does have a lot of positive security side effects.

bignev72 · 15 Jun 2012 at 16:11

cokecan72 said:
Do you have any proof of this?

I work in IT, I have a lot of stupid users. Some have UAC disabled on network as standard, some don't.

Believe me they ALL get viruses

Nuff said

p.s. I've had UAC disabled on all my home machines since Windows 7 came out, as have all my family and friends. They've never had a virus because none of them are stupid.

Raumarik · 15 Jun 2012 at 16:19

bignev72 said:
I work in IT, I have a lot of stupid users. Some have UAC disabled on network as standard, some don't.

Believe me they ALL get viruses

Nuff said

p.s. I've had UAC disabled on all my home machines since Windows 7 came out, as have all my family and friends. They've never had a virus because none of them are stupid.

Why do your normal users have administrator rights to PCs? Why are they able to disable it? If you work in I.T. you'd realise how daft it is to disable it especially on PCs where non-tech savvy people are using it. I'd never dream of turning off UAC on my parents PC even though they're both fairly good at spotting iffy e-mails and not clicking random links online.

I suggest either you're making most of this up or you haven't run an AV/malware check on any of your PCs recently.

cokecan · 15 Jun 2012 at 16:27

bignev72 said:
I work in IT, I have a lot of stupid users. Some have UAC disabled on network as standard, some don't.

Believe me they ALL get viruses

Nuff said

p.s. I've had UAC disabled on all my home machines since Windows 7 came out, as have all my family and friends. They've never had a virus because none of them are stupid.

lol yeah but that doesn't prove anything. 99% of the time people get viruses because they click/accept stuff that's presented to them on screen without thinking.

If people run as a standard user then the UAC prompt will ask for admin credentials (which hopefully they don't have if its any kind of corporate environment) as soon as something tries to modify system files or install something or similar. It also prevents them from disabling UAC in the first place - I would question why users on your network are able to disable UAC though?

That fact you and friends/family have it disabled and haven't had a virus yet only proves that you have more common sense than the vast majority of your average users. it certainly doesn't prove that UAC doesn't work/is rubbish/doesn't serve any purpose

Broken Hope · 15 Jun 2012 at 16:32

Durzel said:
If it was just during install it wouldn't be such a problem.

Every time I double-click on CPU-Z (already installed) on the desktop it says "Do you want to allow the following program to make changes to your computer". Surely it's not making any changes?

It loads a kernel mode driver each time it's run, this requires administrator access, hence the UAC popup.

[Damien] · 15 Jun 2012 at 16:32

*Click to open control panel*
"Are you sure you want to do this?"

No. I clicked it for a laugh. :mad:

Durzel · 15 Jun 2012 at 16:33

Broken Hope said:
It loads a kernel mode driver each time it's run, this requires administrator access, hence the UAC popup.

Thanks for that. Don't know why but I thought maybe I had messed up something on my new install. I think it was the fact that it just pops up a blanket "Do you allow this program to make changes", that I was taking too literally, thinking "what changes would CPU-Z need to make?"

[Damien];22147394 said:
*Click to open control panel*
"Are you sure you want to do this?"

No. I clicked it for a laugh.

I like the ones where it pops up asking you if you want to run some cryptically named executable that has been legitimately installed by something else. Do I want 'ixFlopDrv64.exe' to do stuff? I dunno, I don't even know what it is!

bignev72 · 15 Jun 2012 at 16:35

Halfmad said:
Why do your normal users have administrator rights to PCs? Why are they able to disable it? If you work in I.T. you'd realise how daft it is to disable it especially on PCs where non-tech savvy people are using it. I'd never dream of turning off UAC on my parents PC even though they're both fairly good at spotting iffy e-mails and not clicking random links online.

I suggest either you're making most of this up or you haven't run an AV/malware check on any of your PCs recently.

Classic OCUK response there! Automatically go to the "you're making this up" chain of thought. The biggest downfall of this place.

We're outsource IT so different companies have different setups. If the client wants their users to have admin rights so they can install things then we obviously comply. We can recommend against things but at the end of the day they get what they ask for.