O2 Mobile Broadband: Microsoft’s UAC is there for a reason.

My mobile broadband package from O2 arrived this morning and as I had to jump out of the shower to answer the door; this better be good…

Following the instructions, I carefully inserted the SIM card into the dongle and the dongle into my laptop which is running Windows 7 beta. The documentation said that the software would install automatically and I would be surfing wirelessly. After a few minutes, I was still waiting so I swapped the dongle over to another USB port and waited some more. Nothing happened.

Windows 7 has autorun turned off by default, presumably to prevent malicious software from auto running whenever a USB dongle is inserted. It’s a good thing. Since the dongle was detected by Windows 7 as a mass storage device and the installation files are visible, I ran them manually and this happened:

The O2 Connection Manager is asking me to turn the UAC (User Access Controller) OFF. Why?

I know Microsoft took a lot of grief for the overly zealous UAC in Vista, a UAC which worked to defend the user against him or herself by constantly prompting users to “Accept or Deny” almost every application installation or change of system setting. Most users, myself included, turned off the Vista UAC. Microsoft have modified the UAC in Windows 7 to a good standard, interrupting the user less whilst still safeguarding the operating system.

I have to get back to work now, but if anyone from O2 or Huawei is reading this, please, next time – write your installers properly, code sign your installer and write some useful documentation! And it’s worth investing in the best installation software suite around (worthy of its own article): Lindersoft SetupBuilder.

I’ll let you know how I get on with O2’s dongle via Twitter.

UPDATE: Once installed, the O2 Connection Manager software does actually remind you to re-enable UAC “For your protection”, so it’s not all bad!