Well, I finally succumbed.

After hours of working to get some scripts going that, with XP took all over about 10 minutes the first time around, I’ve given up.

I simply opened the Windows Users control panel applet and turned off UAC.

Lo and behold, everything works just like it did back in XP.

I know, I know. “Users won’t run with UAC turned off so how are you going to properly test your app?”

Well, how ’bout a VM with Vista in it and the UAC turned on?

Even better, my user account with UAC off, and a Test User account with minimal rights and UAC turned on. (But I haven’t yet figured out how or if  you can turn UAC on, on an account by account basis, Anyone have any ideas?)

I’m not happy about it, but I refuse to spend any more of my time clicking those damn “accept” boxes.

Not only that, but I’ve heard not just a few respected programmers in the community say things to the effect of “Vista is just too difficult to program under, I’m going back to XP.”

My question is, if running Vista without the UAC is basically like running XP, then, at least from a developer perspective, why not just run Vista without the UAC, then test on a VM with it? Does continuing on with XP bring anything to the table that Vista without UAC leaves out? From what I can tell, no.

Is it ideal? No. Is it better than XP? Well, the drivers and eye candy are nice, but otherwise, I don’t see much difference. Surely there’s additional security details that have been cooked in that have nothing to do with UAC, so I’ll get their benefits.

And when PowerToys for UAC (Ugh) comes out and I can munge the UAC as necessary to get everything I need working properly, I can turn it back on.