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emil frederiksen's avatar
emil frederiksen
Brass Contributor
Dec 30, 2020

“Do you want to allow this app to make changes to your device?”

Hello everyone!

I use Windows 10 home

Whenever I install some new software, the window appears, where I get asked the following:
“Do you want to allow this app to make changes to your device?”

1)
Where can I see a list, with all the apps that has been granted access?

2)
What parts of my system does the app get access to?

3)
The whole drive with all my data?

Thank you in advance for replying

Best regards

  • Hello emil frederiksen,

     

    The 'Do you want to allow this app to make changes to your device?' prompt is basically the User Account Control prompt. You can read all about it in this documentation:

     

    https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/security/identity-protection/user-account-control/how-user-account-control-works?WT.mc_id=WD-MVP-5000693

     

    The answer to your questions:

     

    1) IMO, there is no such list to access. All the third-party apps (except Microsoft Store apps) you may have installed should have been granted via UAC prompt.

     

    2) This specifically depends upon the app you are granting access to.

     

    3) May or may not be possible, again depends upon the app.

     

    Regards.

    • emil frederiksen's avatar
      emil frederiksen
      Brass Contributor
      Thank you for your post!

      It just seems weird / wrong to me that, when I grant this kind of access to an app. The app could potentially get access to all my personal files on my drive, and then change and upload / steal them?
    • Crab__'s avatar
      Crab__
      Copper Contributor
      Do you know if there is a list of apps that can make changes to your divce and how can a take away access
  • Further questions:

     

    I have installed:
    Authentic games (acknowledged titles and not pirated)
    AVG and Malwarebytes
    Acknowledged software for recreating deleted data

    Should any of those rise any concern regarding, that they in any was accessed something they should not, or in any way uploaded any data that was not part of their function?


    If ANY software tries to install (malicious), will this window asking for permission get triggered?

    Thanks in advance for replying

    Best regards

    • HotCakeX's avatar
      HotCakeX
      MVP
      Windows Security (Defender) has the built-in tools that detect potentially unwanted apps, malware, virus and other malicious files/apps/websites.

      as a user, don't give file permission to apps that you don't trust.
      • emil frederiksen's avatar
        emil frederiksen
        Brass Contributor

        HotCakeX 

        To try to sum up my concern.
        I have some folders containing private files (not anything shady etc.), pictures of my newborn child etc.

        How can I surely find out, that no "shady" software has acccess to my personal folders, and that it has not uploaded the content of these folders without my knowledge?

        How would you approach this?

        Thanks again for your help

        Best regards

  • Obamawastaken's avatar
    Obamawastaken
    Copper Contributor

    emil frederiksen I have another doubt how do we disable this feature? I'm trying to uninstall an app so I can make space for a game and I click uninstall and it starts uninstalling but just then this pops up and the uninstallation process is disturbed and it shows me an error code. I can't even uninstall the app. A simple task has become literally impossible. The process hasn't even started before it cancels because of the interruption. This is extremely annoying and I can't disable the feature. Please help.

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