Those two OSes have the benefit of inheriting the UNIX-style security model from their inception, where all but a select few programs are designed to run within the security confines of the user who launched them. The first versions of Windows didn’t support running processes in a separate ‘user space’ which didn’t have direct access to hardware and other resources.

Since MS usually puts a big effort into backwards compatibility so people can still use the large existing software base when they upgrade, no attempt was made to block programs from elevating their permissions if needed (later versions allow enforcing this via policies like Hayu mentioned). In turn, most developers didn’t feel the need to code their apps without requiring elevated access.

So, UAC comes along and many more programs trigger it than they should, because they’re not coded properly. Such a program in OSX/Linux flat out wouldn’t run unless you’re a super-user because no such elevation mechanism exists. This should change over the next few years- MS might decide to run old apps (or maybe all apps) in a complete VM sandbox (parts of the machine are already virtualized for all processes) since we’re at the point where even the lowliest hardware can handle it. I’m guessing this is what happens when you run a Classic MacOS program in OSX, for example.

Hope that’s been of interest to some!

-”Average users” end up just clicking Allow/Continue all the time anyway, which defeats the purpose when something bad comes along

-If your system is already compromised (the only way an unauthorized program would even get to the point of asking you to allow or continue, then there’s probably already a loss of security integrity on the system. Yes this may prevent it from getting worse, but I personally wouldn’t feel comfortable until formatting/reinstalling. This from a user who installed Vista SP2 and disabled UAC and Windows Defender on Day 1 and have never had a security problem on my PC.

When the notebook rebooted after turning off UAC, a lot of important services had also been automatically disabled by Vista. This included ones necessary for the wifi to work, my McAfee scanner to automatically start, etc. Even the appearance had changed because services allowing the standard vista theme had been disabled.

I tried to just turn UAC and the Security Center back on, to reverse the change – after the reboot, all the services remained disabled but now I got the annoying UAC nag every time I tried to do something as well.

I ended up having to manually enable all the services that had been disabled, trying to figure out which ones should be automatic, which ones had to be started (not just made automatic and then come on with the reboot), which ones were dependant on other ones so that they could be started in the correct sequence.

Maybe this is a “feature” from Microsoft so that normal users can’t hurt themselves by being online with UAC disabled, and maybe this is specific to new releases of Vista Home (everyone else on this thread seemed happy with the instructions), but it was damned annoying whatever it was.

What we need is the ability to disable it COMPLETELY, not make it silent.

BTW, I have Vista Home Premium 64-bit SP1 *ONLY* because Dell did not give me any other option. Another brilliant POS version of Microsnot Winblows.