Ronnie
Even with the prompt enabled it still requires the user to be knowledgeable
of the application UAC is prompting about. Once elevation is allowed UAC
does not protect the user. Clicking allow becomes nothing more than an
annoying additional click which in many cases becomes automatic.
Additionally, the most common way a PC becomes infected is by downloading
something from the net and even with the UAC prompts disabled you still
receive a security warning when you attempt a download.

Personally, when I decide to run something I don't have a need to be asked
to confirm it. If I didn't want to run it I would not have clicked on it in
the first place.

The bottom line is UAC does no more than protect the user from himself, and
even that still requires the user to be knowledgeable.

"Ronnie Vernon MVP" <rv@invalid.org> wrote in
messagenews:3F04A9A8-EC21-412D-9ED2-3386B2E653BB@microsoft.com...[color=blue]
> "Bob" <bob@nowhere.net> wrote in message
> news:VISdnaGl9rkOUnjanZ2dnUVZ_g-dnZ2d@comcast.com...[color=green]
>>
>> All of that nonsense can be eliminated by running UAC in “quiet” mode.[/color]
>
> This is a fallacy! If UAC cannot notify the user that a program is trying
> to gain global access to the system, then it is effectively 'disabled'.
> This so called 'quite mode' setting just changes a UAC registry setting to
> 'automatically elevate everything without prompting'. This means that when
> you click to open a file, it is 'assumed' that you already know that the
> file will have unrestricted access to your computer.
>
> The main thing that UAC does is to detect when a program or application
> tries to access restricted parts of the system or registry that requires
> administrator privileges. When a program does this, UAC will prompt the
> user for administrative elevation. Without this prompt, UAC cannot warn
> the user, which means that it is effectively disabled.
>
> Some people will tell you that using "quiet mode" will still let IE run in
> protected mode, but this just isn't true. Without the UAC prompt, a
> malicious file that runs from a website can run, without restrictions, and
> silently.
>
> Another issue is that with UAC prompt disabled, some legitimate procedures
> will just silently fail to work properly, with no notification, if you are
> logged on with a Standard User account, since the application cannot
> notify you that administrative privileges are required.
>
> Even the developer of the TweakUAC utility includes this statement about
> his product.
> "if you are an experienced user and have some understanding of how to
> manage your Windows settings properly, you can safely use the quiet mode
> of UAC." In my opinion, if you are an experienced user, the last thing you
> would want to do is turn off the UAC notification.
>
> If you 'are' an experienced user, then you would already know how to
> temporarily bypass the UAC prompt to perform just about any procedure in
> Vista, such as running programs from an elevated command prompt, or using
> an elevated instance of windows explorer.
>
> The last problem I have with this so-called 'quiet mode' is that it
> dissuades developers from programming their applications to run in a least
> user privilege environment.
> --
>
> Ronnie Vernon
> Microsoft MVP
> Windows Desktop Experience[/color]