XP pro security question

[David Jones]

If you're using FAT, all your points are moot. FAT has
no security at all, and all users can add and delete
whatever files they want anywhere on the drive.

No matter about Add/Remove Programs, nothing prevents me
as a regular user from just deleting random application
folders on a FAT drive, or creating whatever files I
want, putting them where I want.

>-----Original Message-----
>I have XP pro installed in a home environment, with
family members as
>users. They are set up as 'users', not 'administrators'.
>
>For some reason, when I log onto one of their accouts, I
am able to
>access the 'Add or Remove Programs' menu, which should
not be
>accessible from their accounts. I was even able to get
there from the
>'guests' account. How secure is that?!
>
>Once, I got a message "You do not have permission to add
or remove
>programs .... see your Administrator ..." (not sure of
exact context).
>But all the other times I am able to access that
function.
>
>The drive is not set up NTFS, but I don't think that
that should
>affect this particular security feature.
>
>Have I not configured something correctly? Should I
verify any other
>security area? Should I convert to NTFS (I didn't since
I didn't want
>the 512 allocation block size implementation)?
>
>Thanks in advance, Lee Bowman
>.
>

[Lee Bowman]

>If you're using FAT, all your points are moot. FAT has
>no security at all, and all users can add and delete
>whatever files they want anywhere on the drive.
>
I understand that aspect of FAT, and I really do favor the NTFS, with
its many advantages.

>No matter about Add/Remove Programs, nothing prevents me
>as a regular user from just deleting random application
>folders on a FAT drive, or creating whatever files I
>want, putting them where I want.

In this instance, however, the 'add' or 'remove' function is an XP
program function, not a simple file deletion, and I would think that
the operating sytem could easily refuse to cooperate (when the request
comes from a non-administrator).

Your point about being able to delete files at ramdom in a simple,
open file system is true. Any 'guest' could do all kind of nasty
stuff if they wanted, but I still wonder why the XP makes it easy for
them by presenting them with 'add/delete', 'administrative tools',
'computer management', 'disk management', etc. Those menu items
should be invisible to them.

I will, however, convert to NTFS. I have an 80 Gb single partition,
and it bothers me, though, that I'll have 512 byte allocation units
(due to the 'convert' utility's alignment requirement). I'd rather
have 4k or 8k blocks (who cares about slack anymore), but unless I
formatted with NTFS, and specified that size cluster at format, and
prior to XP install, I'll end up with 512's. That will create a huge
allocation table, and may affect performance.

Regards, Lee

[David Qunt]

(Lee Bowman) squirted these wordjisms deep inside the
bumtube of the news**** in :

unless I
> formatted with NTFS, and specified that size cluster at format, and
> prior to XP install, I'll end up with 512's. That will create a huge
> allocation table, and may affect performance.
>
> Regards, Lee
>


unless you use something like Pertition Magic, which allows you to specify
the cluster size you want/need.......


--
Iain McLaren
*********************************
> >A. Top posters
> >Q. What's the most annoying thing on Usenet?
************************************************** **