UAC - Desktop and Start Menu

[Rich Bell]

Why does Vista prompt for an Administrator password when I try to delete or
move shortcuts on my desktop or within my start menu? A regular user should
be able to control their own Desktop and Start menu. This is so intrusive it
makes for an annoying experience. It appears that this only occurs with
shortcuts that were placed there by the installer program (which required an
Administrator to run). If I place a shortcut as a regular user, I have
complete control over it. It seems to me that ANY files that are within a
regular user's profile should be under full control of that user. Installers
will always require Admin rights and therefore will create shortcuts that
require Admin rights. Am I missing something?

 

[Robert Moir]

Why does Vista prompt for an Administrator password when I try to
delete or move shortcuts on my desktop or within my start menu? A
regular user should be able to control their own Desktop and Start
menu. This is so intrusive it makes for an annoying experience. It
appears that this only occurs with shortcuts that were placed there
by the installer program (which required an Administrator to run). If
I place a shortcut as a regular user, I have complete control over
it. It seems to me that ANY files that are within a regular user's
profile should be under full control of that user. Installers will
always require Admin rights and therefore will create shortcuts that
require Admin rights. Am I missing something?

At a broad guess, you're making changes to "all users" shortcuts, which is
therefore a change to the way the computer works and yadda yadda yadda.

I bugged this very behaviour during the beta, explaining that while I
understood that the whole thing was "by design", that I felt the design was
flawed somewhat because... etc

The bug was closed as "by design". The designers are apparently not only
idiots but proud of it too.

 

[Rich Bell]

At a broad guess, you're making changes to "all users" shortcuts, which is
therefore a change to the way the computer works and yadda yadda yadda.

I bugged this very behaviour during the beta, explaining that while I
understood that the whole thing was "by design", that I felt the design
was flawed somewhat because... etc

The bug was closed as "by design". The designers are apparently not only
idiots but proud of it too.

I agree. That still doesn't explain why something on my Desktop requires
Admin to delete. Perhaps the fix is for future installers to allow more
control over the creation of shortcuts.

 

[Malke]

I agree. That still doesn't explain why something on my Desktop requires
Admin to delete. Perhaps the fix is for future installers to allow more
control over the creation of shortcuts.

As far as I'm concerned it may not be considered a bug but it's a crappy
"feature". Like Mr. Moir, I also bugged it during the beta and the MS
answer was that it was "by design" and the bug was closed. IMO desktop
icons are in user space and should be controlled by the user. But that's
not the choice MS made. Oh well. Nothing we can do about it now. It's
not because this "feature" is for future installers; it's exactly
because of what Mr. Moir said. When you have a shortcut created by a
program for All Users, it is no longer considered to be in the
individual user account's space alone. I think this is wrong-headed, but ...


Malke

 

[Robert Moir]

As far as I'm concerned it may not be considered a bug but it's a
crappy "feature". Like Mr. Moir, I also bugged it during the beta and
the MS answer was that it was "by design" and the bug was closed. IMO
desktop icons are in user space and should be controlled by the user.
But that's not the choice MS made. Oh well. Nothing we can do about
it now. It's not because this "feature" is for future installers; it's
exactly
because of what Mr. Moir said. When you have a shortcut created by a
program for All Users, it is no longer considered to be in the
individual user account's space alone. I think this is wrong-headed,
but ...

Well if you see it too then I know it's not just my eyes playing tricks. "Mr
Moir"? No need to be so formal unless you want to!

 

[Jimmy Brush]

If I remember, they wanted to have a better solution that both had no
negative security aspects and let the users remove global items from their
desktop, but didn't have enough time for Vista.


--
- JB
Microsoft MVP - Windows Shell/User

Windows Vista Support Faq
http://www.jimmah.com/vista/

 

[Guest]

I agree. That still doesn't explain why something on my Desktop requires
Admin to delete. Perhaps the fix is for future installers to allow more
control over the creation of shortcuts.

It's not entirely "your" desktop.

It's your desktop on your administrator's computer.

I can shuffle papers around on my desk at work, but if I try to drill holes
in it, or move the legislation-mandated "Health and Safety at Work" posters
from my cubicle wall, I get told I'm not allowed to do that.

I can add, move, and delete my own posters from the cubicle wall, but I
can't remove those that are administratively placed.

Same goes for the desktop - some of the items on it are yours, others belong
the the system - they are under the "All Users" desktop, which means that
they are forced to be in that location.

If it's truly a per-user, user-controlled setting, it should be installed
under the Default User's desktop, and propagated out to users who want it in
some other way (sorry, I'm not an install guru, so I don't know quite how
you'd do that).

Maybe your install needs to be re-designed. UAC shows up in its most
frustrating guises when application developers have been doing something for
years that _seems_ like it's right, that _seems_ like it works, but which
isn't quite right.

Those of us that work in environments and industries that _require_
restricted users (i.e. no user is an admin unless they absolutely need to
administer) are constantly having to deal with applications like this that
install themselves incorrectly, and fall back to the "nobody else complains
about it" defence, rather than actually doing what's been documented for
years as the correct behaviour.

Alun.
~~~~

 

[Guest]

I think I can fix your problem. In the control panel there is a feature that
has something to do with Administrator (?) Jobs or something like that. If
you go into that you should be able to do whatever you want because the
computer now knows you are the administrator. I never quite understood that
until the other day when I was trying to install my printer on my daughters
new laptop. The website said the program had the drivers so I didn't need to
download anything but it still wouldn't let me complete the install until I
went into the Administrator's tool. I was able to install the rest of her USB
ports, that didn't automatically install when she turned on her computer and
then they recognized my printer and the installation went smoothly. Check it
out and see what you find. Hope it helps.

Beth