Vista security problem?

I seem to have another problem. I have one admin account and one standard user account. Yesterday I was working as a standard user and had to access the admin account folders. When I tried I was asked to enter the admin password and I did it. Everything worked fine.

I shut down the system and tried the same thing today and it did not ask for the password but I am able to access the folder !!!

Now how do I make it forget the admin authorization

dahat wrote:

You'll need to give the standard user access rights to the admin's forlder.

I guess you did not get my question. When I tried to access the admin folder yesterday it asked for the admin password. Once I gave it I was able to access it. But now even after reboot the password is cached. So when I try to access the admin folder as a standard user it does not request for any password but I am able to access it just like any other normal folder

YearOfTheLinuxDesktop wrote:



anand.t wrote:  dahat wrote: You'll need to give the standard user access rights to the admin's forlder. I guess you did not get my question. When I tried to access the admin folder yesterday it asked for the admin password. Once I gave it I was able to access it. But now even after reboot the password is cached. So when I try to access the admin folder as a standard user it does not request for any password but I am able to access it just like any other normal folder

when you give the admin passwords vista changes the folder settings to give your user read/write access this is why it doesn't ask for password anymore.

Oops. I will check it out when I go home. But is this not dangerous?? I was thinking it was like in linux where the root authorization is forgotten after a while.

anand.t wrote:



dahat wrote: You'll need to give the standard user access rights to the admin's forlder.

I guess you did not get my question. When I tried to access the admin folder yesterday it asked for the admin password. Once I gave it I was able to access it. But now even after reboot the password is cached. So when I try to access the admin folder as a standard user it does not request for any password but I am able to access it just like any other normal folder

when you give the admin passwords vista changes the folder settings to give your user permanent read/write access to that folder this is why it doesn't ask for password anymore.

anand.t wrote:

Oops. I will check it out when I go home. But is this not dangerous?? I was thinking it was like in linux where the root authorization is forgotten after a while.

yes it is dangerous but they did that probably to avoid people complaining about continuous UAC prompts when accessing folders. let's hope that vienna will bring some changes to allow easier and more secure access to protected folders. personally I'd love if the UAC could remember past choices (for example granting an application full permissions).

Mmm... I'd say it's a "lesser of two evils"

One: Allow access by granting read permission (requires UAC prompt)

Two: Allow access by elevating explorer to Admin. (Which would require restarting explorer - annoying, and either magically knowing when you were finished and restarting again, or staying elevated until you log out... Which given Vista's desire to sleep and hibernate rather than restart, could be a long time.)

Option one is neater and easier to achieve I think.

YearOfTheLinuxDesktop wrote:

personally I'd love if the UAC could remember past choices (for example granting an application full permissions).

Right click -> Properties -> Compatability -> Run this program as administrator.

This doesn't remove the UAC prompt, but it means that it will never try to run with standard priviledges. (Removing the UAC prompt altogether on any program seriously impairs security)

Derail! Muahaha!

What do the numbers on evildictators and anand.t's avatars mean? I can't figure it out

YearOfTheLinuxDesktop wrote:

I'd love if the UAC could remember past choices (for example granting an application full permissions).

Riiiight. Say that application Foo requires admin rights, Windows throws UAC and you confirm it. Under your mechanism, UAC would remember that you granted Foo admin access, and wouldn't ask any more. Now, what if some malicious program ends up on your computer. It's constrained to running as a standard user, but would really like to be able to elevate. It happens to notice that Foo doesn't require a prompt in order to run as admin. In that case, all it has to do is hijack Foo in some way.

The next time you run Foo...