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Running PC as Administrator
I shall appreciate if somebody could guide me about the pros and cons,
especially on operational and security issues, of always running a computer as Administrator. This is with respect to one machine that is stand-alone and connects to the Internet with a Wireless Broadband connection (Verizon EV-DO/3G). Service Pack 2 is installed and Windows Firewall is fully enabled. The system can boot either into WinXP Pro or WinXP MCE 2005. The "Shields-Up" set of utilities at www.GRC.com and the probes at www.hackerwhacker.com were run on this PC to check for vulnerabilities - none were found. AntiVir and SpyBot, as well as AdAware, are installed. Why the user wants to run this particular machine as Administrator is a totally different story. Mine not to reason why! I am just trying to educate myself on this issue too. Hence, links to reading material would be very much appreciated too! Regards and thanks very much in advance. Avatar. |
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#2
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Running PC as Administrator
Why you should not run your computer as an administrator
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/d...not_admin.mspx Not that I follow that advice. ;-) -- Hope this helps. Let us know. Wes MS-MVP Windows Shell/User In , Avatar hunted and pecked: I shall appreciate if somebody could guide me about the pros and cons, especially on operational and security issues, of always running a computer as Administrator. This is with respect to one machine that is stand-alone and connects to the Internet with a Wireless Broadband connection (Verizon EV-DO/3G). Service Pack 2 is installed and Windows Firewall is fully enabled. The system can boot either into WinXP Pro or WinXP MCE 2005. The "Shields-Up" set of utilities at www.GRC.com and the probes at www.hackerwhacker.com were run on this PC to check for vulnerabilities - none were found. AntiVir and SpyBot, as well as AdAware, are installed. Why the user wants to run this particular machine as Administrator is a totally different story. Mine not to reason why! I am just trying to educate myself on this issue too. Hence, links to reading material would be very much appreciated too! Regards and thanks very much in advance. Avatar. |
#3
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Running PC as Administrator
Avatar wrote:
I shall appreciate if somebody could guide me about the pros and cons, especially on operational and security issues, of always running a computer as Administrator. This is with respect to one machine that is stand-alone and connects to the Internet with a Wireless Broadband connection (Verizon EV-DO/3G). Service Pack 2 is installed and Windows Firewall is fully enabled. The system can boot either into WinXP Pro or WinXP MCE 2005. The "Shields-Up" set of utilities at www.GRC.com and the probes at www.hackerwhacker.com were run on this PC to check for vulnerabilities - none were found. AntiVir and SpyBot, as well as AdAware, are installed. Why the user wants to run this particular machine as Administrator is a totally different story. Mine not to reason why! I am just trying to educate myself on this issue too. Hence, links to reading material would be very much appreciated too! Routinely using a computer with administrative privileges is not without some risk. You will be much more susceptible to some types of malware, particularly adware and spyware. While using a computer with limited privileges isn't the cure-all, silver bullet that some claim it to be, any experienced IT professional will verify that doing so definitely reduces that amount of damage and depth of penetration by the malware. If you get infected/infested while running as an administrator, the odds are much greater that any malware will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to remove with formating the hard drive and starting anew. The intruding malware will have the same privileges to all of the files on your hard drive that you do. A technically competent user who is aware of the risks and knows how to take proper precautions can usually safely operate with administrative privileges; I do so myself. I simply don't recommend it for the average computer user. -- Bruce Chambers Help us help you: http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once. - RAH |
#4
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Running PC as Administrator
Thanks for the responses - Bruce Chambers and Wesley Vogel - I am learning
about this issue myself now. The information - both linked as well as spelled out - have been extremely informative! I will be passing on this info as well as some local input to the user anon. I find these newsgroups extremely helpful and informative. All of you MVPs are doing a wonderful job. Regards and thanks again. Avatar ------- "Avatar" wrote in message ... I shall appreciate if somebody could guide me about the pros and cons, especially on operational and security issues, of always running a computer as Administrator. This is with respect to one machine that is stand-alone and connects to the Internet with a Wireless Broadband connection (Verizon EV-DO/3G). Service Pack 2 is installed and Windows Firewall is fully enabled. The system can boot either into WinXP Pro or WinXP MCE 2005. The "Shields-Up" set of utilities at www.GRC.com and the probes at www.hackerwhacker.com were run on this PC to check for vulnerabilities - none were found. AntiVir and SpyBot, as well as AdAware, are installed. Why the user wants to run this particular machine as Administrator is a totally different story. Mine not to reason why! I am just trying to educate myself on this issue too. Hence, links to reading material would be very much appreciated too! Regards and thanks very much in advance. Avatar. |
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