What's the impact of these changes on smart card usage?
Smart card usage is expanding rapidly. To encourage more organizations and users to adopt smart cards for enhanced security, the process to provision and use new smart cards is simplified and supports more end user scenarios.
What's new in User Account Control?
Before the introduction of User Account Control (UAC), when a user was logged on as an administrator, that user was automatically granted full access to all system resources. While running as an administrator enabled a user to install legitimate software, the user could also unintentionally or intentionally install a malicious program. A malicious program installed by an administrator can fully compromise the computer and affect all users.
With the introduction of UAC, the access control model changed to help mitigate the impact of a malicious program. When a user attempts to start an administrator task or service, the User Account Control dialog box asks the user to click either Yes or No before the user's full administrator access token can be used. If the user is not an administrator, the user must provide an administrator's credentials to run the program. Because UAC requires an administrator to approve application installations, unauthorized applications cannot be installed automatically or without the explicit consent of an administrator.
In Windows® 7 and Windows Server® 2008 R2, UAC functionality is improved to:
Increase the number of tasks that the standard user can perform that do not prompt for administrator approval.
Allow a user with administrator privileges to configure the UAC experience in the Control Panel.
Provide additional local security policies that enable a local administrator to change the behavior of the UAC messages for local administrators in Admin Approval Mode.
Provide additional local security policies that enable a local administrator to change the behavior of the UAC messages for standard users.
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