'Power' button driving me nuts!

Miscellaneous Forums/General Discussion/'Power' button driving me nuts!

Is there a way of changing vistas red power button to actually shut down, or offer a choice like in XP?
It seems to think i want it to suspend all the time! To shut down i need to go to an arrow 2 buttons right of it and select shutdown from a menu >:(

Because i rarely use it and it uses the standard off symbol in red my hand clicks before my brain (habit. :)

GfK

Start > Control Panel > Power Options > Change Plan Settings > Change Advanced Power Settings > Power Buttons and Lid > Start Menu Power Button

Genexi2

Thanks Gfk, I was wondering that myself as it was ticking my parents off on their rig. (I still use WinXP personally)

Does the OS ever feel better after long-term use? It looks and runs nice, but I keep finding that there's two extra steps involved for every bloody process on the thing, made setting the thing up for networking a pain for me.

GfK

I've always got along OK with Vista, really. But then, I didn't set my stall out to hate it from day 1 like a lot of people did.

Sure its had it's issues, but I can't think of anything worth mentioning since the release of service pack 1. Oh, but for the love of Christ, turn User Account Control off! It basically assumes you're an idiot and asks you "did you really click the mouse just then or was it a virus?"

If you're able to dress yourself, you don't need UAC.

Doiron

It basically assumes you're an idiot and asks you "did you really click the mouse just then or was it a virus?"

If so it should most of the userbase from running infected files! (for my assumption I would change 'idiot' to 'unexperienced' though)

The truth is, after being repeatedly asked to continue, users will reply "yes" regardless of what was asked... that's were the strategy fails in my opinion, if not for the part which excludes administrator priviliges while UAC is on. :)

Anyway, while working in tech support, it must be said I heard far less complains about instabilities due to infections than before (which is also due to a solid kernel, even better after SP1, and the integrated firewall and antispyware).

xlsior

The truth is, after being repeatedly asked to continue, users will reply "yes" regardless of what was asked... that's were the strategy fails in my opinion, if not for the part which excludes administrator priviliges while UAC is on. :)

The biggest problem with UAC is that it's all-or-nothing, with a ton of innocent actions triggering it as well. It would be half-way usable if there was a way to set a 'danger level' or something, but in its current way every fart will trigger a 'allow or deny' pop-up, which just trains the average user to always click 'allow' without even reading the messages anymore.

D4NM4N

Start > Control Panel > Power Options > Change Plan Settings > Change Advanced Power Settings > Power Buttons and Lid > Start Menu Power Button

Thanks GFK,

You have saved my laptop from a vista fuelled happy-gilmore style tantrum. :)

dawlane

The truth is, after being repeatedly asked to continue, users will reply "yes" regardless of what was asked

Call me paranoid but I'm one of those people that doesn't just blindly click continue. Like the small print on any document I will read it.
I reckon that the only people that hate UAC are those that are in PC repair line of business, as people can't screw up there machines as easily as they can with Windows XP.

I haven't had to sort out any of my friends PC's since they to switched Vista in 8 months (It was every two to three weeks with XP).

The biggest problem with UAC is that it's all-or-nothing, with a ton of innocent actions triggering it as well.

MS assumes that anything that tries and access areas that are restricted can not be truly innocent.

It would be half-way usable if there was a way to set a 'danger level' or something

It would have been better if there had been a trusted application data base that wouldn't trigger the UAC.
But then MS would want to test it like they do with hardware drivers (hard ware vendors have to pay for this) and the next thing we would find is software costing more.

but in its current way every fart will trigger a 'allow or deny' pop-up, which just trains the average user to always click 'allow' without even reading the messages anymore.

Then for my assumption you would have to change the word "unexperienced" back to "idiot".

Jim Brown

> The truth is, after being repeatedly asked to continue, users will reply "yes" regardless of what was asked

My girlfriend does that. She get lots of *.pps and *.exe files emailed from friends and blindly opens everything automatically clicking YES to "Are you sure?" prompts

She would click through anything regardless of what it said ..

"Dangerous file warning. Are you sure you want to open it?" -- YES
"This file will erase everything on your harddrive. Ok?" - YES
"Do you wish the installed file to erase your very existance?" -- YES

I have said it before but I wish Windows had a sandbox mode where all this garbage can run without being allowed to modifiy any external files.

> Start > Control Panel > Power Options > Change Plan Settings > Change Advanced Power Settings > Power Buttons and Lid > Start Menu Power Button

Holy cheese. And they say Windows is even easier than ever!
Have they put a Right-Click > Properties option on the button?

dawlane

#10

My girlfriend does that. She get lots of *.pps and *.exe files emailed from friends and blindly opens everything automatically clicking YES to "Are you sure?" prompts

I would set up another account that doen't have Administrator privileges and change the admin pass word.

Or just get another girlfriend thats I.T. savy.

Doiron

#11

I have said it before but I wish Windows had a sandbox mode where all this garbage can run without being allowed to modifiy any external files.

Well, at least with UAC on you don't have administrator privileges... it's not like a virtual machine, but still makes it harder to access system files.

A common problem with the UAC pop-up annoiance is that when unexperienced people want to get rid of it, they just disable it from the user account after reading some cheap guide which doesn't go into enough details. This way a novice which on occasion runs infected attachments from e-mail/msn or run malicious webpages gets easily in trouble with Vista as well. The best way for a novice who doesn't like these pop-ups would be to create a restricted user, and then use it instead of the administrator account.

D4NM4N

#12

I was really hoping vista would support more unix/linux like file system permissions. You have either temporary root permission or you dont. When you are root you normaly just get 1 severe warning not to screw up, thats it. Point heeded. (then for any critical warnings you get a message only when nessacary)

The problem with the approach for a yes-no bubble for each and every benign thing that can possibly happen, makes users so clicky-clicky that when a REALLY critical message comes up, it may be overlooked or ignored thinking the system is just "crying wolf" again.

Silly example:

<Click>
"please confirm you want to download (yellow bar)"
-Ok fair enough, yes download please

"Please confirm you want to open the zip file, zip files can be bad"
-erm, yes. (wouldnt have downloaded it if i didnt, and its not as if im running anything yet so why ask?)

"Blahblahblah some tray app needs an update"
(Oh not NOW! im in the middle of something!)
-NO, to update and YES im sure i want to close the update wizard!

-right, where was i?.. oh yes.

"Folder does not exist are you sure you want to create it"
-yes. (humph, wouldnt have told you to extract it there if i didnt!)

"Please confirm you want to run this file"
-(Sigh) Yes please. (Otherwise i wouldnt have clicked on it! Although fair enough i guess, i just wish this warning had a "dont EVER annoy me again")

"A program needs authorization to continue"
-YES!

"A program is attempting to access the network"
-ARGH! YESYESYESYES (madly start clicking away every and any message that pops up until calm resumes)

"This action may very likely cause irrepareable hardware damage or data loss, continue?"
-BWARGGGGHHH! @%&#! YEEEESSSS! >:O

-oh.... oops! NOOOOO! :(

Ok, that was a silly example at whats unlikely to happen, but it certainly shows how people get into the "get lost" habbit. At least you can turn some of it off i guess, but knowing windows's past record with security im kinda scared to! While i want it to run what i tell it, i dont want it running anyhthing else.

AdrianT

#13

If a webpage pops up a yellow warning IN IE about potentialy dangerous scripts, and its a new site that I don't trust. I normaly just don't use the site at all. Often if its just downloading an exe from a well known site its ok, but if its trying to run anything at all then that sites off limits to my computer.

D4NM4N

#14

Yeah, i don't mind the web-side messages so much. They are a nessescary evil, but on firefox are fairly minimal (not used ie7 for a while, but seem to remember it being about the same)

xlsior

#15

MS assumes that anything that tries and access areas that are restricted can not be truly innocent.

Read this: http://www.crn.com/software/207100934?cid=CRNFeed

In a Thursday presentation at RSA 2008 in San Francisco, David Cross, a product unit manager at Microsoft who was part of the team that developed UAC, admitted that Microsoft's strategy with UAC was to irritate users and ISVs in order to get them to change their behavior.

"The reason we put UAC into the platform was to annoy users. I'm serious," said Cross.

There you have it from the horse's mouth: It was intended to be annoying, in an attempt to get software creators to follow the Vista way of doing things or risk pissing off their users. It seems like Vista itself caught more of the backlash than the 3rd party software creators did, so it didn't completely work out for MS.

xlsior

#16

Well, at least with UAC on you don't have administrator privileges... it's not like a virtual machine, but still makes it harder to access system files.

UAC made Vista completely unusable to me, for one very simple reason: 'prohibited' operations from a command prompt don't trigger a UAC popup, they just fail with an 'Access Denied' error.

Call me oldfashioned, but I still live at the command prompt. At any given time I have several DOS boxes open, and do the bulk of my navigating, copying and launching from there.

You can't copy files around in 'protected' folders like 'Program Files' from DOS, not can you edit configuration files... No "do you want to allow this" popups, just a flat "access denied" error.
That put such a major roadblock in my productivity that it was the first thing I disabled.

And no, I'm not going to start doing everything from the GUI -- even in this day and age, the command prompt (combined with UnixTools) is still very, very powerful, provided you know your way around it.

GfK

#17

Call me oldfashioned, but I still live at the command prompt.

I don't think 'old fashioned' quite cuts it. But I heard Indiana Jones will be looking for you in his next film....

Suppose you're posting here from the command prompt too, are you? Or do you use "GUIs" a lot more than you are willing to accept?

xlsior

#18

Suppose you're posting here from the command prompt too, are you? Or do you use "GUIs" a lot more than you are willing to accept?

*Sigh*

I said I navigated my directory structures and copy stuff from the command prompt, not that I don't run GUI-based applications.

Anyway, this has suited me well for almost 20 years now, so it is really annoying when artificial restrictions such as UAC get in the way of it.

D4NM4N

#19

Call me oldfashioned, but I still live at the command prompt.

Its not old fasioned, its simply more advanced and quite sensible actually. Some stuff can be done much faster from CMD and it is a powerful tool.
Loading programs is faster too (aside from having loads of DT icons which look pug-ugly).

By the time you have gone

start->programs->(scan the list looking for a program to run)->myprogram

Its easier to do:

windowskey+R -> press enter (cmd usually already there) -> myprogram or command(enter)

I tend to do this with batch files as most windows apps dont set the paths for new programs (only MS ones do). Also you can even type the name of a document ie "mydoc.doc" and it opens with the right program (provided your command path is set to documents).

This can be a real quick 1-time setup for your favorite apps / utils: (for those who didnt know)

echo \prog[press Tab]\partname[tab]\partname[tab] > \mynewcommand.bat

Theres LOADS of handy stuff you can do with it, like quickly mapping drives, generating a file list eg:

dir /x prog[tab]\*.exe /b/s > mylist.txt

This to my knowelage is impossible to do in the gui.

I also reckon its somtimes faster than "the dog" at searching for files too if you point it in the right direction.

Doiron

#20

Obviously UAC isn't for experienced users... to say the truth, with a restricted account you would get similar errors. Of course if you know what you are doing you can have administrator privileges and disable UAC, since it's a one time thing which takes less than a minute.

However, there are inexperienced users which find UAC annoying and just disable it while the best course of action for them would be to create a restricted user. Either way, though UAC already reduces the number of zombie pc's out there, it can be improved.

Inexperienced users don't even know what a prompt is (I even know some so-called technicians who don't know how to use it...) and by using it without restrictions they could do quite a mess on system folders. Also, viruses as well could use (and often actually used) batch files if there were no restrictions.

D4NM4N

#21

and by using it without restrictions they could do quite a mess on system folders.

No more really than with file manager as it is governed by windows restrictions.

Also, viruses as well could use (and often actually used) batch files if there were no restrictions.

Its the same rules as anything else (exe, com, scr, websites etc) if you didn't write it or don't trust it then don't run it. Plus viruses dont have to create and run batch files to do what they do. If they didnt exist, the services/interrupts are still there anyway so they would just use code instead (like they usually do).

As for the bat file itself, can a dodgy batch file alone even be technically classed as a 'virus'? I would class it more as a harmful script or 'trojan' at most. I suppose you could have a self-replicating script, so i guess it can :/ (but thats the least of your worries, other types of files are statistically & potentially much more harmful. At least you can open and check a bat file before running it)

Doiron

#22

You can classify batch files as you want, but they can do quite a bunch of things as you explained earlier, and I saw some programs run batch files to rapidly do a number of things before the user noticed without triggering the heuristic scan. Obviously these files are not written for the ones who don't run them. Let's call them malware and leave it at that, also because most of the viruses today (expecially trojans) are written by criminals which are not always accomplished developers (back in the early 90's I saw much more examples of naughty viruses than today, though I occasionally stumble on viruses which use a number of clever techniques and I am glad not to have ran them myself).

I don't see the problem as long as the experts can still use them by disabling UAC. Restrictions are there for the people who don't know by themselves how to disable UAC.