-- Introduction --
I've seen many people just assume UAC is nothing more then annoying prompts (Even an Apple advertisement did so and they should know better) and a roadblock to them doing things.
I'm going to explain in this post why it is more then that.
Read Full Article at Tech Oddity

-- History of post --
Revision 4 - 2008-03-24 - Updated post to point to article on Tech Oddity
Revision 3 - 2008-03-19 - Update FAQ
Revision 2 - 2008-01-29 - Explain in more detail, update formatting
Revision 1 - 2008-01-27 - First published

Thanks. I think a sticky topic or article would be better as there isn't an HTG daily newsletter.
First though I probably need some better examples, a more helpful number 5 as I know people don't just randomly download stuff as there is usually a good reason for it and maybe some reference links to other articles online.
This is just a first draft post to try and explain that UAC isn't totally useless as a lot of people seem to think so and want to disable it.

@whs: Do you mean the "Email Subscription" link on the HTG home page? If so I thought that was just to email you when a new article appeared and not a newsletter. If not then I've missed something.

@mod with sticky powers: Thanks for making the topic sticky.

@whs: I subscribed. It is just emails when a new article comes out plus a list of related ones. Still useful but not something I would call a "Daily Newsletter". I guess The Geek thinks differently as it's called that.

@The Geek: Is there a way the first post in this topic can be made editable for me again?

@jd2066, Thank you for posting this. I personally think that no one should disable the UAC ... if you do you might as well use XP.

@ the geek, What is the new edit window?

Great post.

I must say that even a "power user" (and I use the term loosely), UAC is not really annoying. In the first few weeks, I got prompts all the time, but now I will go days without any. UAC won't bug you during "normal use". It only pops up for configuration changes mostly.

It must be remembered that MS put UAC in place because so many people were screwing up their installations. Most of those people were then helped by us geeks. Wouldn't you rather your parents/siblings/friends didn't ask you for help quite so often? ;) At least now UAC gives them a warning.

I dare any "power user" to say he or she has never done anything stupid while fiddling with Windows. Ever deleted a system file by mistake? Ever made your machine unbootable? Ever uninstalled the wrong device? Ever installed the wrong driver? If you answered yes to even one of those, UAC is a neat extra safety feature. I for one won't be turning it off.

Of course, if anyone not a "power user" is using the machine, UAC is a very good idea.

i can't use my microphone in yahoo

jd2066 why are you so hot on UAC. Did you write it?

Interesting article regarding the subject. http://news.zdnet.com/2424-3515_22-197089.html

@GaardCeteru: True but there is one flaw with the UAC prompt and that idea. Like listed on Tweak UI the UAC prompt only appears once to give a program Administrator privilages and after that the program can do whatever it wants.
On the alert feature the reason there isn't an alert is the many ways to integrate into Windows. All the ways have good uses and alerts for each of them would be annoying.
Many of the features viruses and spyware use were originally designed for good things and built to trust the program using that as no one thought about the bad uses.
Like for instance any program can integrate with the system Favorites folder to let the user manage them from another program. No one thought at the time the feature would be abused by so many programs to add their own links to favorites without the user's permission.
It's the same with Junk email, the email system was designed to be open and flexible. No one originally thought that trusting system would be abused to send junk.