Microsoft cuts UAC prompts in Windows 7

User Account Control, a Windows Vista security feature that has long been considered intrusive, will appear about one-third less often in Windows 7 than it does in Vista.

“From our beta and internal testing, we expect a 29% decrease in UAC prompts compared to Windows Vista,” Paul Cooke, Microsoft Corp.'s director of Windows 7 client enterprise security, said last week.

The UAC feature is designed to reduce the chance that malware could hijack a PC by forcing users to confirm that they really intend to do things such as install software or modify key settings.

Earlier this year, Jon DeVaan, senior vice president of Microsoft's Windows core operating system unit, said the move to scale back UAC prompts came after an internal study found that users were suffering from “click fatigue.”