In some cases, Microsoft has smartly reconsidered the existence of UAC prompts. There's no longer any UAC prompt surrounding the use of Windows Defender, the Setup Fax Wizard or the Scanners and Cameras Control Panel (which Computerworld criticized in an earlier story).

One of the most mystifying UAC behaviors in Vista Beta 2 caused a prompt to appear when you tried to delete some desktop program shortcuts. If the program was installed for use by all accounts in Vista, then UAC blocked the deletion of the icon in Beta 2 with a permission prompt. If the program was only installed for the current account, then deletion of the same program shortcut would occur normally. Since there's no way for Windows users to know which way the program was installed, even experienced beta testers were confused. For Build 5472, so long as the running account has administrator privileges, then icons installed "on the public desktop" will be deleted without issue when you drop them into the Recycle Bin.

Finally, Heaton acknowledges that file operations and UAC -- the prompts you may see when you open specifically protected file folders in Vista such as the Program Files, Windows and Desktop folders -- is the main focus of continued User Account Control development leading up to and probably beyond RC1.

Has UAC been cleaned up enough to make it workable for millions of Windows users the world over? It's too early to call. But Microsoft is moving Vista in the right direction.

Media Center still buggy