Wanting to disable UAC: Will problems arise?

Title Tells all...there's a theme I wish to use, but I have to disable UAC to replace my shell32.dll with a copy that is not signed.

So, apparently i have to disable UAC, unless there's a way to sign the .dll or something else?

So, since I've been using UAC for a while, will I have problems (something about virtual layers?).

Thanks in advance!

 

How are you disabling UAC? I disabled it within my user control and disabled constant message updates from the MS Command Center. No issues. Are you effectively trying to hack/uninstall it?

 

I've decided to turn it off. I have Comodo running with Defense+.

 

I have been using my laptop for months with UAC turned off.. and I haven't had any problems..

As long as you know what you're doing, I don't think there will be any problems..

 

I'm not sure if it's needed to disable UAC to use custom theme. Have you taken ownership of those system files?

 

It's the shell32.dll, it's not Signed

hah, and now I need to reboot, and I've already renamed the shell32.dll and I can't rename it or place an original shell32.dll back in the directory, so Vista won't boot.

Hopefully I can rename it with the command prompt.

 

The biggest problem to arise is you still having UAC on! Should have turned it off from day one lol

 

UAC- Useless Annoying....Cyclops

 

Meetloaf try it in Safemode also if you switch off UAC then you wont get protected mode in IE and few stuff gets disabled too ..

 

I would recommend instead of turning off UAC, to simply disable the constant prompts for authorisation. That way, you still get the memory and file system protection from UAC, but won't be constantly bothered by messages requesting your consent to run a program.
Go to Local Security Policy > Local Policies > Security Options > User Account Control: Behavior of the elevation prompt for administrators in Admin Approval Mode, and select Elevate without prompting.

 

The "virtual layers" you are talking about is actually the virtualization of the "Program Files" directory and portions of the registry. One of the benefits of UAC is that it gives each user their own virtual "Program Files" and sections of the registry that applications USED to think were global to all users. Why is this a benefit? Well lets say you have an application or a game that saves configuration data to the Program Files folder for that app or game. With UAC, that app or game thinks it is saving the file to the Program files folder, but in reality Vista has redirected the file to another folder. And all users on a given machine get their own instance of that folder. So if you play a game and it saves you place in the game, the data gets written to YOUR copy of the file. If your kids also play that game, and each kid is a separate user, they each get their own copy of the file. This holds for other things like configuration settings and preferences for applications. (This same paradigm applies to the virtualization of portions of the registry.)

If you turn UAC off, this virtualization disappears to the applications or games. They look for the files in the ACTUAL program files folders and don't find the "virtualized" folders anymore. But if you turn UAC back on the virtualized folders reappear to the applications and games.

It sounds like your plan was to turn off UAC long enough to accomplish the mods you wanted to do and then turn it back on. If so the UAC virtualization won't bite you. If you LEAVE it off however, some of your apps will appear to have lost certain preferences, settings, configuration files. (BTW, if you navigate to the virtualized folders you can copy those files to the actual Program files folders to restore the applications access to them.)

Gary

 

If I have only one user, is this an issue?

Also, where would I find these Files/Folders?

You are correct Scud...I was trying to install a couple patched Themes. My buddy disabled UAC, then patched the files (one of which was an unsigned shell32.dll) and then turned it back on....HAYWIRE.

Now, I did the same patch w/o turning UAC back on and I got the same HAYWIRE, so I still can't conclude if turning UAC back on affected anything.

What I'm getting at, is that I'm not sure if UAC not only disallows and unsigned shell32.dll from being placed in the System32 folder (this happened for me), but if it also, upon boot recognizes an unsigned shell32.dll in existence in the system 32 folder and then goes bonkers (this would mean I couldn't re-enable it...if the patch I was trying to install worked in the first place.

=\

All in all, thanks for the lesson on UAC....I was secretly hoping you'd notice the thread =)

P.S. Can't rep you again yet...phooey

 

Yes, even with a single user the apps will not know what happened to the config files and other things it thought it was saving to the program files directory.

The virtual folders are in:
C:\Users\xxxxx\AppData\Local\VirtualStore\Program Files

Where xxxx is the specific user.

For the registry see this article:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa965884.aspx

I don't think UAC had anything to do with the "haywire condition". In fact I am pretty sure it didn't. It did of course prevent you from replacing the shell32.dll which is why you had to turn it off. But once you had accomplished that mission and turned UAC back on, I don't think UAC knew or cared that you had replaced the shell32.dll.

However, I do think that other functionality of Vista, (not UAC), is protecting that file. See this:

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/how-to-delete-a-system-file-in-windows-vista/

and this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_File_Protection

I think you will find that Vista may have restored the original shell32.dll, when you weren't looking. It doesn't take kindly to folks messing with files under its protection.

Gary

P.S. you KNEW I would notice this thread. I feel compelled to tell the FULL story about what happens when folks use and then don't use UAC. Unlike the fools who say oh just turn it off it won't hurt anything and ignore the ramifications OUTSIDE the loss of protection, I want folks to understand what ELSE happens.

 

Hi.

How do you get rid of the red shield with a cross in it when you disable UAC on the taskbar ???

thanks

John.

 

Right click the red shield in the System Tray or just go to control panel > Security Center > Change the way Security Center alerts.... and you can set how you want it to be...

 

Hi.

You can only "disable all security notifications" and that is all security problems not just UAC, is this WISE????

Thanks

John.

 

Well, obviously turning off UAC in the first place is itself not wise, IMHO..

But Yeah, getting rid of the red shield just when UAC is turned off has been an issue (for which there was no sure permanent fix, AFAIK). There was a post somewhere I saw that tweaked with some registry settings for UAC prompts, but I don't remember where I saw it or what it was exactly.. also there was another guy who posted about "right click the red shield and exit", though he wasn't 100% sure about this...

 

From my previous post, to turn off UAC prompts, just go to Local Security Policy > Local Policies > Security Options > User Account Control: Behavior of the elevation prompt for administrators in Admin Approval Mode, and select Elevate without prompting.

 

You could also use Tweak UAC, which can turn UAC on or off and it can also run UAC in "quiet Mode" which suppresses the elevation prompts.

 

=)

So, like the articles mentioned, the main problem with deleting/renaming/replacing system files lies in not "Owning" them. I went through the drill of taking ownership. I'm fairly confident that they were not replaced with originals, b/c when I had problems at boot, I went and replaced them with the originals manually and was then able to boot.

As far as the Windows File Protection, it looks like Vista is covered under "Windows Resource Protection" now (with it's inhumanely large winsxs folder...take a look at the size of yours )

Quoting from the Wiki ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Resource_Protection):
"Therefore, by taking ownership of any single item, that particular item can be replaced, while other items remain protected."

Here's a handy tool for anyone who decides to mess w/System Files and really doesn't know what they're doing and botches the install. It is a command that you can run by booting into safe mode (with command prompt)
type:
"sfc /scannow" > Hit ENTER
Essentially it compares your system files to the ones in Vista's store and replaces mismatches

So, in the end I was likely replacing the system files with some hack-jobs files that simply shouldn't be placed on my system (me = knuckle-head I know)...I just wanted to make Vista look a little more perty =).

Tx again Scud.
Paz

 

Oh, don't get me started about WinSXS. As a programmer, I full appreciate the need for it, but the implementation leaves a lot to be desired. It never seems to shrink, even in situations like the one where a single app relies on a particular DLL and when that app updates to a newer version of the dll the older one (now with no possibility of EVER being needed) remains in WinSXS. Stupid!!!!! The ONLY way to shrink WinSXS is to reinstall the OS and the current version of all your apps. ...sigh...

Gary

 

Hehehehe, I knew I might strike a soft spot there =)

10 GB with a clean install last month for me.