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So I just read an article at cnet that gives more evidence that Microsoft doesn’t really care about end users. Apparently, Microsoft deliberatly wanted to annoy their users with User Account Control (UAC), according David Cross, the Microsoft manager that was in charge of UAC during Vista’s development. “The reason we put UAC into the (Vista) platform was to annoy users–I’m serious,” said Cross.You’ve probably heard of UAC in Windows Vista. If not, here’s a quote from Wikipedia, “[UAC] aims to improve the security of Microsoft Windows by limiting application software to standard user privileges until an administrator authorizes an increase in privilege level.” From most accounts, UAC is very annoying because it often gets in your way when you just want to run your software.According to Mr. Cross, a big problem with legacy software in Vista is that often the software was written to run under an Administrator account, while Vista sets users up on a non-privileged account by default. So UAC was designed as a mechanism for users to permit their software to run, even if it requires administrator priviledges. So far I’m with Microsoft on this one. Where we part ways is when Microsoft decided to annoy the crap out of their users with UAC. Why did they do this? Microsoft wants to put pressure on software developers so that they will update their software to run under a non priviledged account. So here’s the scenario, the way I see it:

1. Microsoft makes users Administrators by default in Win XP (and all previous versions).
2. While developing Vista, Microsoft forsees a problem with legacy software when they give users a non-priviledged account by default.
3. Microsoft wants to pressure software vendors to update their software so it will run under a non-privileged account.
4. Rather than spending some of their billions of dollars in the bank to put pressure on Software vendors, Microsoft forces their unsuspecting users into the bully role by annoying the crap out of them with UAC.

Thanks Microsoft, you have once again shown us your brilliance, and we are all unworthy in your presence…