Have you problems with VISTA LUA?

We are discussing at techsupportalert what to suggest for beginner/average/advanced user.

I'd definitely like to add LUA (and perhaps UAC+TweakUAC) to VISTA. I have seen no problems at all when using them.

I was opposed eg. due to the following problem (UAC):

"If you run an unsigned EXE it throws a warning message, agreeing to run it doesn't get recorded anywhere so the next time you run the program you get the same thing. Sure I can hack around this but why should I have to?

I would think it extremely unlikely that I am the only person running unsigned programs. Indeed, most freeware is unsigned due to the cost of buying a digital certificate."

What do you people think? Is this a common problem? Have you found LUA/UAC (un)comfortable to use?

 

In short: Yeah, LUA is a very good recommendation. UAC? That's not bad either. I've no problems with them.

The longer version?

I think LUA is very comfortable, assuming two things:

1) The software you're running was coded by someone who cares about LUA, and following the security model of the OS they're coding software for. Not all coders care, or can be bothered to make their software compatible with LUA. But then, personally, I wouldn't run their software. If the software is not coded with LUA in mind, then it may not work correctly, and you might have to spend some time on making it work, if it's even possible. That of course is not exactly very comfortable, since it's basically the developers of the LUA-incompatible software wasting your time and making you do their job...

2) You can accept that Limited User is not Admin. There are things limited users are not supposed to be able to do "conveniently." LUA like any security measure is a tradeoff: you trade unlimited admin powers for a more limited set of privileges in order to protect the system and other user accounts from certain accidents. An example: "I can't change the system time as LUA, LUA sucks!" Limited users aren't supposed to be able to do that, so that they can't mess up the security logs of the system along with file date stamps and everything else.

As far as getting "warning messages" when running unsigned programs, I wouldn't consider that a problem at all. Actually, I don't even remember the last time I saw anything like that.

In Windows XP SP... 2, probably, the feature was introduced that when you download some file with IE (and then later Firefox started using this feature, as well), Windows writes an alternate data stream to the file that tells it "came from another computer" and is therefore somehow suspect. If it's an unsigned executable file and you then run it, Windows will prompt you and tell you the publisher could not be verified and you should only run programs created by publishers you trust. You can make the warning go away by many different methods, like opening the file properties and clicking "unblock". That's how I remember that stuff, anyway. I could be mistaken. It's been ages since I last saw any prompt like that. And I run as LUA all of the time.

 

Thank you for your lengthy comment. Other people, what do you think?

1) Do you use LUA?
2) Problems with LUA?

3) Do you use UAC?
4) Problems with UAC?

 

1) Do you use LUA?

Yes

2) Problems with LUA?

No, other than occasional minor incoveniences

3) Do you use UAC?

No. I use the HIPS built into Outpost SS

4) Problems with UAC?

Too simple and it can't remember answers