Windows Vista Security: Praxisorientierte Sicherheit für Profis

Understanding Windows Vista Personalization

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While these features have a far-reaching impact on the way you use Windows Vista,

they enhance security and provide your computer with better protection from mali-

cious programs. If you use these features as they are intended to be used, your com-

puter will be protected from many types of malicious programs.

Turning UAC On and Off

To your own detriment, and I mean that quite literally, you can disable UAC and all

its related features on a per-account basis. Rather than completely disabling UAC,

you can enable and disable individual features through policy settings. As we’ll dis-

cuss in Chapter 18, you can find these policy settings under Security Settings\Local

Policies\Security Options.

At home, you can turn UAC on and off for your account by following these steps:

1. Click Start and then click Control Panel.

2. In the Control Panel, click the User Accounts heading and then click User

Accounts again.

3. On the User Accounts page, click “Turn User Account Control on or off.”

When you click “Turn User Account Control on or off,” you are

prompted for permissions or consent, as discussed previously. Because

this is an inherent part of the user interface and a feature that you can

enable or disable, I will not mention each time the prompt is dis-

played. Rather, I will assume that you provide the permissions or con-

sent as required.

4. To disable UAC, clear the “Use User Account Control” checkbox. To enable

UAC, select the “Use User Account Control” checkbox. Click OK.

5. When prompted, click “Restart now” or “Restart later” as appropriate. You will

need to restart your computer for this change to take effect.

At the office, you cannot turn UAC on and off using this technique. While you may

be able to configure individual UAC features through policy settings, these features

will more than likely be set so that you cannot configure them.

Understanding Windows Vista Personalization

As you’ve seen, many factors can affect your computer’s appearance and perfor-

mance, including your hardware components and account controls. The way you

achieve a balance between appearance and performance, however, is largely through

the trade-offs you make when applying personalization settings, and it is personaliza-

tion settings that largely determine your experience.