After installing and running EMET I realized something. The only time I'm prompted on x64 W7 SP1, is when starting my installed programs e.g. Macrium Reflect, AX64 and even the EMET GUI, which in my my mind is kind of an oxymoron lol. Anyway, why the heck don't I just disable it completely? Your opinions please!
Do you have it set to Always notify or to Default level? If you have it set to Always notify you can change it back to Default - it will give you less pop-ups. You can also disable it if you don't want or need to control when programs need administrative privileges. Programs (and possible malware also) will get full rights without any pop-up.
If you ever get a UAC prompt when you didn't expect it, what would you do? There are known ways to evade UAC prompt on non-max setting that Microsoft will not fix. UAC involves other aspects than just "the prompt," so if you really don't want to see UAC prompts anymore, it would be best to keep UAC on but set it to auto-elevate.
For what it's worth: I decided to disable UAC on Win 8, because I got too many useless alerts. If you're using HIPS then you do not really need it. Also, a lot of older apps (not designed for Win 64 bit) need to run as admin otherwise they will not work correctly.
UAC works pretty much as a simple application boundary. When a program requires an administrative privilege it has a better chance to destroy the operating system. True, it is imperfect and has been bypassed in studies, but enabling it is still a better idea than disabling it IMO. At least you will have a chance to prevent intrusion when there's an unsigned process wants to elevate when you are in the middle of your browsing activity.
Some threads that might be of interest: Avoid UAC prompts by using an elevated program launcher RunasRob (free) lets a standard user run a program with admin privileges without...
Do note on Windows 8 disabling it is actually equivalent of auto-elevation while on Windows 7 it is completely disabled (not recommended).
Yes correct, you can not completely disable UAC on Win 8, because of a design change. I guess this is a good thing.