The Moth

Unsurprisingly, after my UAC talk this morning (that I mentioned here), there was a lot of interest and I promised to publish helpful UAC links (in addition to previous mentions on this blog here, here and here). True to my promise, find them below!

1. Understanding the feature before jumping to questions is important. Don't take anything I say as gospel (always a dangerous tactic!) and instead read the official word:

- Short what is it by security MVP on technet.

- UAC for developers (written during Beta 1 but still valid)... and an updated one here.

- UAC for IT Professionals (surprisingly even though I am a developer, I found it quite interesting).

- UAC 91 page document for developers is available for download (a must read).

- The COM Elevation Moniker (all you want to know and more)

2. Now that you understand the feature, start testing your applications as standard user on Windows XP. If it works there, from a UAC point of view, it will work on Vista.

- Standard User Analyzer tool... requires the Application Verifier.

- Get the Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT) 5.0

3. A lot of the compatibility issues are relevant to installations.

- UAC in MSI blog.

- MSI Patching Technology (tip: explore the other links from the tree on the left).

4. Related topics that I received questions on and promised I'd provide links to
- IE7 Protected Mode on Vista.
- Service changes in Vista.

5. Still got questions? Get them answered using the resources below:
- Even though it is now closed, there is good content on the UAC blog.

- Still active and open to questions is the Vista Security blog.

- When all else fails, first check the msdn forums where you can post any question you like:
* MSDN forum, security for applications.
* MSDN forum, app compat on Vista.

6. For your non-technical, non-developer friend:
For a non-technical plain English version of the UAC story (as plain English as the topic can get) this isn't bad and it also is not an official Microsoft explanation but it makes good reading!

I provided other generic Vista links a while back, and Karl just dropped me a line telling me about their community site that looks interesting: AeroXperience.