You’ve heard about User Account Control (UAC), but you really want to know the answer to, “How does UAC work?” The main purpose of UAC is to monitor any changes on your computer and make informed decisions about how to proceed. By granting or blocking permissions for certain programs, you can decide which programs, software and Internet pages are allowed on your computer.
Approved Programs
- The first tip to learn when answering the question, “How does UAC work?” is that many actions must be approved by an administrator. The computer’s administrator is responsible for the settings on the computer and installed programs.
- All Windows programs are approved by UAC automatically because UAC is Windows software itself. UAC trusts any program that was created by Windows because it will not harm your computer.
- All approved Windows programs will start up and open without a problem, unless the program itself is corrupt.
Unidentified Programs
- Programs that aren’t created by the Windows company will call for a UAC decision. While your computer and Windows may be unsure about the specific program, chances are you know what you’re installing.
- A big part of the answer to “How does UAC work?” has to do with administrator approval. Many programs will need to be approved by the administrator, meaning that in order to proceed, you’ll need to enter the administrator password. You don’t need to be logged in to the administrator’s computer profile, though. You simply need to know the password.
- Some unidentified programs have a publisher script, making it easy to figure out where the program’s from. However, other programs do not have a script. These programs pose the most risk to your computer because you don’t know if they’re legitimate or not.
Malware and Spyware
The main point to understand when figuring out, “How does UAC work?” is that UAC is intended to protect your computer form any malware or spyware. This type of problematic software is most often included in unrecognized programs.
Malware can destroy files and also make the computer crash. The worst case scenario is that the problems caused by malware may not be fixable. You could have to replace your motherboard or the entire computer. Both options mean that you’ll lose all of the important information stored on your computer. In order to protect the computer, the administrator or someone with the administrator password can block certain programs from ever running.