Eight Fixes for Vista’s Worst Features
Windows Vista has Loads of features, but not all work as they should. Here’s how to tweak, modify, or work around the operating system’s biggest blunders.
The developers of Windows Vista had some great design ideas, but poor implementation turned many fine concepts into lousy, annoying features. To be fair, Vista inherited most of these well-intentioned flaws from earlier Windows versions but it either failed to correct them or didn’t even try.
Here are eight of Vista’s most irritating flops, with quick fixes and workarounds.
User Account Control
People do some things in Windows-such as install destructive apps or edit the Registry that merit a stern “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” warning. Such situations may even warrant asking users to prove they’re administrators before letting them continue.
But Vista’s User Account Control (UAC) often fails to tell users why a given act is considered dangerous. Worse, Vista’s designers went overboard, forcing people to click through a UAC prompt to set the clock or start a manual backup. As a result, people get annoyed and start ignoring UAC, effectively removing any protection it might provide.
Here are three imperfect ways to stop UAC annoyances. One minor problem they share is that every so often, when you boot, Vista will announce that UAC is off. You can ignore the warnings, much as you’ve already learned to ignore UAC itself.
1. Just turn it off: This easy fix works well in an administrator account, but it renders standard accounts almost unusable. Select Start -> Control Panel -> User Accounts, and click Turn User Account Control on or off. Select Continue at the UAC prompt, and on the next screen, uncheck Use User Account Control (UAC) to help protecty our computer. Click OK and reboot.
2. UseTweakUAC: This free utility can turn UAC off for administrator accounts while leaving it on for everyone else. Simply run the program, select Switch UACto the quiet mode, and click OK.
3. Fine-tune the UAC settings: This tactic works in Vista Business or Ultimate. Select Start, type secpoLmsc, and press . In the left pane, navigate to the Security Settingsçy\cf0 Security Options folder. In the right pane, scroll to the bottom for nine ways to control UACs behavior.
The One-Way Firewall
Windows’ built-in firewall has always suffered from the same flaw: Though it blocks suspicious stuff that comes in, it does nothing about what your system sends out. Since an infected PC can mass-mail spam and forward your credit card numbers to someone without your better interest in mind, that’s an important shortcoming.
Vista supposedly fixed this problem with the addition of a firewall that is capable of watching and blocking outbound traffic. But that capability is turned off by default. And Vista’s designers neglected to put the controls that turn it on in a place where users are likely to look for them: the Windows Firewall Settings dialog box.
Here are two possible ways to deal with to the situation.
1. Turn on outgoing protection: Click Start, type firewall, and select Windows Firewall with Advanced Security. Click Windows Firewall Properties, in the dialog box, the first three tabs have an Outbound Connections drop-down menu. In all three, select Block.
2. Get another, better firewall: Even with its two-way protection enabled, Windows’ firewall is a feeble guardian. On the other hand, the free Comodo Firewall Pro came out tops in independent testing, ahead of products such as Norton Internet Security.
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