UAC timeout

I have several pieces of software that take really long times to upzip and do preliminary operations before attempting to do the installation. Several times I have walked away to avoid staring at a flashing screen for 15 minutes (or because my bladder is only so large) to come back and find nothing! The UAC permission request times out, defaults to No, throwing away everything that has happened so far.

Is there a means to increase the timeout from the default 2 minutes to either a much longer time, or even to never? What could possibly be the harm? It seems that setting should be lurking someplace in the registry.

Thanks.

Run the initial program as administrator, the UAC prompt will show at the beginning of the operation, and should carry out the any further operations without a prompt.

You can also temporarily disable UAC for the installation, and then reenable it afterwards.

Hydranix said:

Run the initial program as administrator, the UAC prompt will show at the beginning of the operation, and should carry out the any further operations without a prompt.

You can also temporarily disable UAC for the installation, and then reenable it afterwards.

Thanks for the quick reply. I was kind of hoping to leave UAC in charge, just delaying its default for a while longer so I don't have to baby-sit the machines quite as closely. Under the rules of behavior of inanimate objects, it always seems to wait until I am entirely bored, get up to get a glass of water, then pops up and flushes the job before I am back.

I often worry that if the UAC is off then all the "freeies" and "goodies" a lot of software packages are installing might slip by me. Probably paranoia but, then again, some of the vendors will sell us out for a dime-a-hit.:)

I am amazed that timeout isn't easy to find someplace in the registry.

Thanks again. I may just let-'er-rip next time and take my chances.

TairikuOkami said:

Once you start the installer with a bundled crap, UAC will not protect you. Besides UAC is only worth, if set to Always Notify. You can use Unchecky , if you are worried about junk installed by legitimate apps.

Absolutely right. UAC is only meant to give you more control over Privilege Separation employed by Windows. Once you press "Yes" to a UAC prompt at any point in an installation all bet's are off as the process now has almost unlimited access to the whole system. Though any software that exploits the system in any way not clearly indicated before the prompt is pretty much malware.

Bundled crapware is almost always optional, but it's my opinion that any installer that bundles crap is a clear sign that the software being installed isn't worth using.

As a side note, most software installers can be easily isolated from the crapware by opening the setup.exe with 7zip and extracting the true installer, or extracting and manually installing the program files. Though that's a bit off the topic of this post.

Hydranix said:

.......Bundled crapware is almost always optional, but it's my opinion that any installer that bundles crap is a clear sign that the software being installed isn't worth using........

I'm pretty good at spotting them, and with four computers (8 OS since I dual boot) I eventually catch on to where they are sneaking one by me. But it is still annoying.

I lost all respect for Adobe when they sold out. Never had much respect for Oracle's thoroughly nasty leadership (current Java owners having acquired it from SUN, whose founder bankrupted the company acting out his overwhelming hatred for Bill Gates.) How did we wind up with so many nasty folks in this business? I guess there is always the pressure to add another nickle to the bottom line.

TairikuOkami said:

.....You can use Unchecky .....

I'll take a look at it. I am generally pretty good at catching the "options" but may put my sister, who still considers her computer to be a mortal enemy, in touch with it.

TairikuOkami said:

Softpedia is good webpage to check software, if it is listed there, it is malware free (100% Clean award).
At it also says, whenever the software is really free or AD supported, thus contains something bundled.

I really like how in the picture of softpedia you show uTorrent vs Transmission-Qt. It's such an appropriate comparison in the context of crapware. I miss the days of uTorrent actually being a torrent client. In it's current form, it's an advertising platform with a crippled torrent client hidden somewhere within.

I've used NuGet with Chocolatey in the past to install software. The selection of software is fair, and it handles downloading, installing, and updates in a centralized and well-integrated (with Windows) way.