Settings not saved as limited user

Discussion in 'ESET NOD32 Antivirus' started by tcarrbrion, Dec 17, 2007.

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  1. tcarrbrion

    tcarrbrion Registered Member

    Joined:
    Dec 15, 2007
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    I run as a limited user on Windows Vista and I can change things in the configuration but nothing gets saved. Sometimes it appears to work. Sometimes is just does not save and sometimes I get an error message something like "error saving settings".

    It would be very convenient to save settings as a limited user. The password protection is sufficient. As it is there could be a better warning.

    I know there is a need to protect the settings but other security products work OK.

    Theo
     
  2. CrookedBloke

    CrookedBloke Registered Member

    Joined:
    Oct 15, 2007
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    I think you have made a wise choice in running as a limited user in Vista. I do the same. The concept of LUP (least user privileges) is far better implemented in the new operating system than under its predecessors.

    Unfortunately, many software companies seem to be having a difficult time coming to grips with the transition to the new environment (even though it's been out over a year now).

    If you think about the way the operating system and the antivirus software work, you'll see the problem. Many changes in the antivirus software settings are implemented by making changes in protected areas of the file system and / or registry. This means, essentially, than you have to have administrative credentials in order to alter the settings.

    There are a couple of different ways the developers can handle this. They can have the antivirus software notify the operating system that the user or software is trying to do something that requires admin privs so that the operating system can present the UAC prompt, allowing you to enter a password so that an admin account can be used to perform the function. Or they can have you log out of the limited account, log on as an admin user, make the changes, log out of the admin account, and log back in to the limited account. (You could also just use FSU to switch into the admin account without logging out of the limited account at all.)

    It's almost certain that the second method is the easiest to implement. I guess that's what Eset decided to do.

    I can tell you that it's better to do it right the easy way, than to do it wrong the hard way. I tested Computer Associates antivirus under Vista recently. It had the very nice feature of being able to prompt me from within a limited user account for admin credentials when I needed to make changes in the settings of the software. It is also one of the very few pieces of software I have ever seen that was able to cause Vista to crash.

    I don't know enough about the internal architecture of EAV to know whether or not getting it to do this nice trick is feasible without a major rewrite. I doubt very much that a major overhaul of the software would make much sense. I'd rather they just get the basics nailed down in the new version as well as they were in 2.7 before they start getting fancy.

    But, yeah, better integration with UAC in Vista would be a very nice feature.
     
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