OSDev.org

The security in Windows Vista sucks. I'm running task manager as an administrator, and when I try to close some processes (e.g. my virus scanner or a system service) it comes up with "Access denied."

Why am I denied to preform actions on my computer? I understand why this would happen on a government, shared, or school computer. But, this is MY computer. An experienced user should not be denied killing services. If it's a core system component, they could show a "Are you sure? This is a core system component" message but still give to option for you to click yes.

If user screws up their computer, then it should be their responsibility, and the OS shouldn't try to stop them.

MessiahAndrw wrote: If user screws up their computer, then it should be their responsibility, and the OS shouldn't try to stop them.

It happens all the time, and when user does it, he blames Microsoft, and if he can't do that, again he blames Microsoft, but of course if all this has happened on Linux (has happened to me), the user would be guilty.

If i am out driving in my brand new car and get a ticket for speeding, should the carmanufacture then begin makeing slower cars?

Wether the user blames microsoft or not, has nothing to do with it.

kataklinger wrote:

MessiahAndrw wrote:of course if all this has happened on Linux (has happened to me), the user would be guilty.

Yes of course, because then you have the control needed to be able to really screw things up.

fortunately MS doesnt allow you to terminate these services -- otherwise you would have PUPs doing it all the time -- windows cannot tell whether this action is caused by the user, or by a malicious application, and since there is rarely a legitimate reason to terminate these, it opts for security over convenience (its still quite possible to remove these things, but not through the task manager)

if this is a windows service, why dont you try using the windows service manager -- it will have no problem stopping windows services (including critical system services -- though using it will require you to acknowledge a UAC request) if this is part of a 3rd party utility, you should use its control panel to stop it (unfortunately it isnt easy to find this in many virus scanners, simply because the first action of many viruses and PUPs is to turn off the virus scanners -- by clicking the stop button in the same way you do, making it impossible to tell the difference between a person and a malicious program)