Windows® 7 Desktop Support and Administration: Real World Skills for MCITP Certification and Beyond

11.1. User Account Control

User Account Control (UAC) provides an added layer of security to ensure that you are notified if changes to your system are attempted. UAC is intertwined with much of the underlying operations of Windows 7, but the core goal is to limit the capabilities of malicious software.

Chapter 8, "Accessing Resources on a Network," covered SIDs and DACLs. As a reminder, when a regular user logs on, an access token is created that includes the user's SID and the SIDs of any groups where the user is a member.

In earlier Windows systems, a significant risk was present if a user logged on with administrative permissions. If a system was infected with malware while a user was logged on with administrative permissions, the malware ...