Windows XP: Do you have a user account?

Your-Amish-Daddy

I just had a conversation with bud, who is a member here. I'm not going to air dirty laundry, but it made me think for a second...How many people out there actually log into their administrator accounts instead of making a user when they finish installing xp?

I won't post what exactly was said, but I'll post his problem, since the answer is very apparent. He couldn't put files on his desktop computer from his laptop, and he was getting a disk full/disk access denied, you know that long elaborate thing that XP outputs when the target is full or has reached it's disk quota, which it seems to use for permission denied sometimes... Well he got it and I told him the correct answer for that question. Enable file modification under the sharing section, and he'll be able to put files in it. Then he mentioned he couldn't get into it, and I thought, he really couldn't be THAT dumb, to be using the administrator account on his computer as a user account...Could he? I asked and lo and behold, it's the truth. So I decided to ask everyone what they do, kind of a general census of popular trends, and all that..

Edit:// Apparently I wasn't being specific enough. I'm talking about the ADMINISTRATOR account that the Windows XP installer makes, not created accounts with administrator privileges .

Thrax

D) I run the admin account because I'm smart enough to do so safely.

Thelemech

I usually create a Admin(Wind)/Root(Linux) and occasionally one other user account - I'm always on as the Admin/Root... I guess I feel confident/foolish enough there!

Edit:/ As Thrax said - I feel that I am smart enough to be there.

CB

I'm with these guys, but that's not an option in your poll.

fatcat

I only have an Admin account, well besides the other BS account

RWB

I actually use a user account, but was only doing so as a test from when I last reformatted the computer to see if it's really that much safer... now I am just too lazy to switch back to the admin account for bookmarks and all that other stuff.... very lazy. Plus it works fine, except I sometimes have to "Run As" admin.

Thelemech

RWB wrote:

I actually use a user account, but was only doing so as a test from when I last reformatted the computer to see if it's really that much safer... now I am just too lazy to switch back to the admin account for bookmarks and all that other stuff.... very lazy. Plus it works fine, except I sometimes have to "Run As" admin.

...do you find it any safer?

GrayFox

I use to use a limited account and use runas to run all my accounts as administrator when I needed to when I ran windows 2000.... But runas doesn't work as well as it use now that im using xp to also it was a hassle and I never really got virus's or anything

(I really only used runas because I prefer to keep as much as I can in userland so if I ever somehow got a virus it would be much easier to remove and I would have to authenticate to let anything leave userland. And to have as much control over everything on my system as possible.)

Now I just use a set of strict security policy's that should prevent any remote exploit's and many local security holes/potential security holes. (I also disabled administrative shares, $ipc can be used to get enough information to remotely compromise a windows based pc in minuets Assuming theres an account on it that has no password or that has a weak password)


By default Windows shares your Any drives on your machine, your windows folder, a few other things and large portions of your registry, If you don't have an account password anyone can remotely retrieve your account name from $ipc and use your own account against you... Or if you have a laptop provided by your school (like I do) there it staff probably has a local account on all of the machines (Really bad idea if they have poorly written security policy's,remote registry and administrative shares enabled). If someone wanted to they could put a nice little rootkit and trogan (If they made it themselves or repacked someone elses no anti-virus will find it) in your machine remotely do a bit of registry editing remotely have it load at startup and on the next reboot your machine now belongs to them. Or if there really smart they can disable WFP and replace critical windows dll files with repacked versions containing rootkits and virus's making it near imposable to detect.


Windows can actually be fairly secure from remote attacks ... It just takes hours of policy editing and changing file permissions.

kryyst

I have a user account with full admin privledges, which is in addition to the real admin account. But I know what I'm doing so the headache of having to do it the round about way isn't worth while.

mas0n

I usually strong password the administrator account and create a local admin account for myself to use. I like having a clean account ready if needed.

RWB

Thelemech wrote:

...do you find it any safer?

Dunno, I never actually had any problems with my admin account before so my plan was a bit flawed as I have nothing to compare it to. When I feel like it I'll eventually change back. Or not, I dunno... I just play WoW and read PDF's at this point. I don't even remember when I last defragged my HDD.:o

I might have seen myself degrading into a normal computer user which is why I put myself on a "user" account.

Qeldroma

I do make a user account, but it's got a different slant.

1. When I'm on the PC, I log in as an Admin because most of the things I do require it. It's way too inconvenient to pop in and out of restricted accounts.

2. I have a family with friends who occasionally need access to a PC, so I also have a restricted user account. They can surf, write e-mails, and even do homework & printouts.

I've had a few questions from some who weren't able to "download this or execute that", have found a few items of interest in the broswer cache :rolleyes2 - but I haven't had trouble with my machine since I went this route. You learn after the first time .

athalonhead

I did that on my first computer. I didnt know any better. I ran it like that for about a year and a half. Never had any problems with viruses or anything.

Now I have a user account with administrator privileges.

Your-Amish-Daddy

You guys still aren't understanding what I'm talking about dammit. The ADMINISTRATOR account. Not an admin account. The default account set up by the windows XP installer on non-OEM builds.

RWB

Your Amish Daddy wrote:

You guys still aren't understanding what I'm talking about dammit. The ADMINISTRATOR account. Not an admin account. The default account set up by the windows XP installer on non-OEM builds.

yeah until I went to a user account I used the default admin account without setting up any other accounts, including accounts with admin privileges.

fatcat

Your Amish Daddy wrote:

You guys still aren't understanding what I'm talking about dammit. The ADMINISTRATOR account. Not an admin account. The default account set up by the windows XP installer on non-OEM builds.

um, that is what I am using.

GrayFox

I edit out the entire line for the administrator account in my sam file (Causes oph crack to get a segment fault.. anyone smart can still manually get the hash tho)

Thelemech

Dammit, Yeah YAD as FC said -

Shorty

Active Directory domain FTW

yagga

Thrax wrote:

D) I run the admin account because I'm smart enough to do so safely.

Yes, that, and I'm too lazy to click "sign in" on an ugly blue welcome screen.