Windows 7 Taskforce

UAC needs an application whitelist.

Submitted by tehkrom on May 9, 2009 to Annoyance, Legacy, Usability

Problem: UAC blocks you from editing text/images or other files on your hard drive unless you first go into the file security settings and take ownership of it. For people with more than one hard drive that transition from a previous version of windows, this can be quite time consuming and frustrating.

Solution: A whitelist for and signing of applications so they can automatically receive administrator permissions and be allowed to edit/copy/move/delete any relevant file on a local drive. It would be even better if UAC prompted when launching an application for the first time to allow or deny access and would remember the setting from then on (with the option to edit the whitelist later), similar to how Firefox/IE prompt to remember passwords for sites.

Severity: Medium

Impact: Low

Status: Not fixed