User Account Control and Windows 7

Hi there,

Clinton here, with some more spurring thoughts on the forth coming OS, Windows 7.
I have asked this question before, in a previous post, but the impact of the question cover a vast land of thought.

Question:  Why should I upgrade my business to Windows 7 rather than stay with Windows XP or Vista?

Ok, so here’s a reality check, if a good portion of your current desktop users are still running XP, then you should seriously look at moving up to Windows 7, because, Microsoft ended mainstream support for XP on April 14 2008. No ways? – Yeah seriously!

Critical security updates ONLY will be provided at no cost for XP licensed users up to the year 2014.  Furthermore, if you need additional / extended support for XP because moving is not an option just yet for you, then you will need to pay for that as a paid contract customer with Microsoft.

Ok but hear me out,   the most important reason why you SHOULD consider moving forward with Windows 7 from XP is security. There is more internet crime, hacking and brute force attacks on networks than ever before.

Both Vista and Windows 7 provide way better security than XP. A feature that springs to mind right away is the User Account Control (UAC).  User Account Control (UAC) is a technology and security infrastructure introduced with Vista.

How does it work?

It works by improving the levels of security a user can have when working on a workstation, and it limits the application software to standard user privilege levels until your friendly system administrator gives the authorization to increase those privilege levels for the specific application.

So now, only applications that the user can trust get higher privileges. The ripple effect rolls from here into the Malware arena.
Malware is an application. So it doesn’t get privileges to run in order to compromise your Vista/WIN7 operating system, because the UAC controls the access.

In other words, a user account may have administrator privileges assigned to it, but applications that the user activates does not. So privileges for applications, unless approved beforehand will not run.

And here is the Cherry on the Cake – To reduce the possibility of lower-privilege applications communicating with higher-privilege ones,  Windows 7 includes another technology called , User Interface Privilege Isolation… ooh!
This is used in together with UAC to divide these processes from each other so that more control is achieved over applications.

What are some of the items triggering a UAC prompt?

Operating system commands or actions that require administrator rights (a UAC trigger) are marked with the security shield symbol. Ding!

Tasks that require administrator privileges will trigger a UAC prompt (if UAC is enabled) are marked by a 4-color security shield symbol.

 Here are tasks that will prompt for administrator authorisation:

• Changes to system-wide settings or to files in %SystemRoot% or %ProgramFiles%
• Installing and uninstalling applications
• Installing device drivers
• Installing ActiveX controls
• Changing settings for Windows Firewall
• Changing UAC settings
• Configuring Windows Update
• Adding or removing user accounts
• Changing a user’s account type
• Configuring Parental Controls
• Running Task Scheduler
• Restoring backed-up system files
• Viewing or changing another user’s folders and files.

So what are you waiting for? Don’t let your guard down across the enterprise network! Boost your security and stay on top by installing Windows 7. See how it runs…! There is MORE coming up…but for now I’m playing in Windows 7 land!

So what are you waiting for? GO and download the 32 bit or 64 bit version (for Dual Core CPU’s) of Windows 7 TODAY.

Go to: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windows-7/download.aspx

Have a great day!

Clinton Garbutt – Desktop Productivity Specialist
MCP, MCDST, MCTS, MCITP

DATA#3
Australia’s Integrator of the Year