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by Michael Mello.
Original Post: Running Windows under a limited account
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Running an everyday account as Administrator is not a great idea, and there are several reasons why regular and power users alike should create limited accounts. A couple of the major reasons for making the switch would include:
Running under limited privileges will decrease your chances of having malicious code execute on your machine.
Software testing - it's suggested practice to develop under a limited account, so you end up with software that requires the least amount of privileges.
It's really not rocket science that we're dealing with here. Running a day-to-day account as a limited user will help keep your workstation secure, and in the case of the average user; will prevent you, as well as malicious code, from botching up your system.
Now that we have the basic understanding of WHY you would want to implement this security measure, I would like to touch briefly on HOW you would do it. Several months ago when I began to implement this system on my local machine, I had some difficulties. I read from various Microsoft articles to use the runas command, in order to handle certain functions such as: installing new software, or editing system configuration. In theory runas was nice, but all too often it would ignore my commands completely, which became very frustrating and ultimately led me back to my old Administrator ways.
Well last month I found Aaron Margosis's web log. More specifically, it was Aaron's The easiest way to run as non-admin post, which really opened my eyes. I won't get into all the details here, since Aaron has already done that for us, but I will say that the Fast User Switching feature of Windows XP is really the way to go. FUS is easy to set up, and even easier to use. With FUS I run strictly under a limited account, and I seamlessly switch back to an Administrator account, when the need arises.
Using a limited account just adds an extra layer (Firewall, anti-virus software, Spy ware protection, etc., being some of the others) of defense against unwanted hackers, and exploits that can damage your system.
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