No doubt for the majority of you who moved over to Vista, the words "User Account Control" (or UAC for short) was quick to raise its ugly head and give you a sour experience; until you found out the pesky and overly domineering 'security' feature could be turned OFF, that is.

Well, you'll be glad to know Microsoft are now acknowledging that UAC was certainly way too restrictive and has learned from its mistake. The giant software mob hopes to put things right with Windows 7; UAC will still be there, but the company will first and foremost tone it down so it's not so 'in your face'.

You can read about the on-going development of UAC and how MS plan to improve it at this blog page on MSDN.

Now that we have the data and feedback, we can look ahead at how UAC will evolve-we continue to feel the goal we have for UAC is a good one and so it is our job to find a solution that does not abandon this goal. UAC was created with the intention of putting you in control of your system, reducing cost of ownership over time, and improving the software ecosystem. What we've learned is that we only got part of the way there in Vista and some folks think we accomplished the opposite.

Based on what we've learned from our data and feedback we need to address several key issues in Windows 7:

- Reduce unnecessary or duplicated prompts in Windows and the ecosystem, such that critical prompts can be more easily identified.
- Enable our customers to be more confident that they are in control of their systems.
- Make prompts informative such that people can make more confident choices.
- Provide better and more obvious control over the mechanism.