GR, I will say this in reply to you, but it goes to all, and after this I'm watching films then going to bed.

Security is better in layers. You put all your eggs in one basket then you'd better have a damn secure basket. MS realised this and introduced things like DEP, the reason being that no one layer is ever confidently secure. There will always be something, and when that happens you need your next line of defense.

I can promise you that when a virus that comes out that beats your AV / firewall, it will first target those that have turned off UAC. You simply put yourselves down as the next easy targets.

Well, better to live on the edge.

Nope....as you said no security can prevent everything, and IMO adding more just wastes resources/cause possible incompatbilities.

I have a firewall, a running av scanner checking file operations and downloads/etc, as well as a secondary scanner. Any more than that and you're not being smart, you're being redundant and paranoid.

I never use uac, but kind of miss the easy tools you could use to find the intruder in the henhouse like chkdsk and mem/p.

Now I find a free program called autoruns handy, as well as built in stuff like taskmanager and services.

Bye to the days of looking for 655360 (unless certain mouse drivers were loaded), and debug you have to load on your own (i liked fsdebug best, as it merged a couple of regular debug commands into one screen.)

I forgot that one.....besides my AV & Fire wall apps, and secondary scanner, I also have a third party toolbox with apps to examine processes(in more detail than even task manager/.etc) & startup processes, among other things.

With all that, having UAC on would be overkill......very annoying N'avi-like overkill.

Oh FFS guys, I want to go to sleep, and I know I said I'd go, but this really gets to me. Just one more thing.

AV / Firewall / Spyware checker / Ultimate defender of the universe: defend against things that are on your PC. UAC stops things getting on there in the first place (or at least limits them). The tools run on a timer, so how comfy are you with a malicious app runnig for 30 secs on your PC? UAC is not equivalent to these tools you speak of, it's preventative as opposed to curative.

I hope you'll feel a pang of self confidence when your AV tells you that you've been running a trojan for the last 2 days, and that all your data may have been comprimised. Thank god for that AV, otherwise they may have got my data.

Actually the very definition of a firewall is to BLOCK things from getting on your PC...the same goes for a good av with realtime incoming file/port attack detection.

As for timers, most of my apps run in realtime and detect most if not all major viruses, and the ones they don't get(maybe 1-2%) are of the spyware/non harmful variety like web cookies which my secondary scanner picks up and gets rids of should I choose to do so.

Again, stop being so paranoid. It's better overall anyways to setup your own security than have M$ babysit for you.

Seriously, if I didn't know you better i'd think you worked on the development team or some such.

I never worry too much, know that pretty much all can be had, and kind of enjoy the attempts at firewalls and the like.

Used to run a BBS in the old days, and got a kick out of watching people try various things.

Ran Wildcat, Telegards, then Renegade, and had a whole hidden directory full of device names like con. prn, com1, etc to keep the game players from crashing it to command line.

There was also an old 'door' game you could script people to, to make them think they were at the c:> prompt. Had fun watching all of the crap they tried to pull :-)

A few more things.
1) My main use of a firewall was/is always to ensure that no unwanted connections go out. The inbound connections are filtered either from my router (connect on unknown port? deny) or from my work's network (same thing), but I do want to know if the game I've just started tries to communicate with an internet address, while it is supposed to be offline only. Sure, I can check that through a number of ways, including the always useful net stat -a but that doesn't mean I can stop the connection just because I know it's there, unless I modify the hosts file.
2) Resources used by UAC are nothing compared to one realtime antivirus, one firewall/sniffer and a malware, especially if due to work you have a lot of network traffic. So, if you try to open the data send by the nth colleague this day results in a UAC prompt, you know that it isn't what it's supposed to be. And a format command is neither malware, nor a virus, but you will be smashing your head if one goes through. Hell, most of the built-in commands of the prompt can cause damage, that no security software can stop.
3) I never said "If you have UAC, you don't need anything else". I want the UAC on for the non-virus threats, like those mentioned before. There are a few programs (like CoreTemp for example) that require elevated privileges, but that is mostly due to interaction with hardware. Again, I'd rather know when such a program is started than have it executed without my knowledge.
4) A few years ago, Blizzard started selling a little gadget called "Blizzard Authenticator", which at that time was sold for about 6 euros. What that gadget did was add a second security layer to be able to login to your WoW account. At that time, the 6 euros did not cover the manufacturing costs of the authenticator, but Blizzard still sold it because 90% of account compromises were due to the human factor. No matter what your security software may be, if you are not careful, you will be screwed. Having a little light (or a prompt, since UAC is a prompt) pop up whenever you do something with higher privileges is common sense, because what happens if you forget yourself when doing something like this?
5) I think I've read somewhere that after a certain patch or update, Vista's UAC was toned down, to Win7 levels. I may remember this wrong, and it is quite possible that Vista will retain the annoying UAC, but even then, there are workarounds to only have it appear on certain events, and not always. Mostly it's through the use of Local Group Policy Editor, but it's not an easy fix.
6) Who exactly told you that linux hardly ever gets hacked? Linux at a time had a hole that enabled someone to execute any code he wanted, with sudo privileges, just by opening a sound file. So far, I still haven't seen such a hole in Windows, though I'm sure it is possible. You forget the fact that access to the source code allows you to abuse said source code, though not always easily. The reason linux needs so much security is to make it harder to hack/crash, and the reason you know it as hard to hack/crash is because of the security.

So, the tl;dr version
UAC is an added security dialog, that you learn to ignore/bypass, but the one time it will pop-up without you asking for it you will thank it. It will not save your ass if you do not have additional security software, but it covers different cases. Not all disasters are viruses/malware, some very legit commands can cause a hell of trouble "del /F /Q /S %windir%" is a command that all antiviruses and firewalls will allow, but UAC will stop. Would you run that command on your pc?

tl;dr

Stop trying to promote it so much...is it that hard to grasp some don't need it or want to use it? Or that using it is redundant with good security?

Keep the damn thing on, or I will come and hit you in the face!

/evil

Also enable it to popup even LARGER windows with a more cringe-worthy noise....vuvuzelas perhaps?

UAC doesn't cause problems, the stupidly coded games and apps cause problems.
Will do. Everything that tells me that a developer didn't give a fuck while developing his software (so that I won't use anything from that developer ever again).
/love :)

UAC fanboy :\

One question first... Do you understand exactly how UAC works? :) (honestly please)
What's up with this? You do realize that their products are one of the most secure around, right? :)