what account do you use in Win XP. Administrator or User?

[GeneralMandible]

I use an account with admin priveleges on all the machines I utilize. User education is the best security tool out there. For regular, everyday office users, I would recommend just an account with user priveleges.

Edited September 12, 2006 by GeneralMandible

[EchoNoise]

XP? Whats that?

[Guest free4ever]

I am confused about whether this poll is meant to find out about community security practices or if it is just for people to brag that they have admin rights somewhere...

Or am I thinking too much?

i m hunderd % agree with u s a must to keep it secret

[Jeremy]

Administrator account. I am very careful and haven't had any problems in a couple of years, so...

[luke.mccormick]

Active Directory server not connected to the internet, my clients log in as administrators.

[magicfly]

Administrator, but my parents are simple users with not many priveleges...that's better

[severach]

>Of course if you are admin I highly insist you follow my guide

That's a good way to secure IE that I've not seen before. My current techniques typically keep customers safe for more than a year and this should help to extend the time. Someone needs to write an installer for this. Installing it will attach it to all IE except for the icon that runs Windows Update.

>I use SYSTEM

I have run into things where it seemed that Administrator wasn't good enough. I'd like to know how to do that. If you can find "CREATOR OF ALL UNIVERSES" login mode, that would be even better.

For virus scans I need to be able to read and write any files regardless of permissions. Can SYSTEM do that? Can anything do that?

[an_talpur]

Admin, of course !

[hawkman]

Regular user? You gotta be kidding. You have to fight applications every step of the way. They need to write to the windows folder, to system 32, they need to write to HKEY LOCAL MACHINE, even changing the file associations needs administrative privileges. I'm experienced enough to know how to protect myself.

[LLXX]

I have run into things where it seemed that Administrator wasn't good enough. I'd like to know how to do that. If you can find "CREATOR OF ALL UNIVERSES" login mode, that would be even better.

For virus scans I need to be able to read and write any files regardless of permissions. Can SYSTEM do that? Can anything do that?

I don't know that much about the power of the SYSTEM account, other than the fact that it's more powerful than Admin.

Here's how to get a 'root shell' :

Open a command prompt. Invoke the 'time' command to see the current time (just press Enter again to not enter a new time). Now invoke

at xx:xx /i 'cmd.exe'

Where xx:xx is some time in the near future (one or two minutes ahead).

Wait a few minutes and the new command prompt should appear, this one is running under SYSTEM. You can start the task manager (taskmgr) from there, close Explorer.exe and run it from this new task manager (which is also running under SYSTEM) to get full use of the SYSTEM account.

As for logging in by default as SYSTEM, that requires some very complicated registry editing that I won't go into detail here (nor do I remember everything about it!)

[jaclaz]

Just for the record, there are a number of apps that allow starting apps and processes with the System account, here are a couple:

http://grubletrang.com/Software.aspx?app=PowerPrompt

http://p-nand-q.com/download/supershell.html

now

http://p-nand-q.com/gtools/grootshell.html

jaclaz

[rado354]

I use Administrator account.

I know it's not a good thing, but can't live otherwise

Software products testing all day

[awergh]

at home when im using nt4\2k\xp i use administrator

i just cant be bothered using the user acount

even when i have 9x logging on to my domain i use my "administrator"

(administrator has no policies applied to it the other users do)

at school i use a domain administrator most the time as well.

[haggisnneeps]

I use the Hypergalactic MegaPriv account (it's a hidden account - not many people know about it) which encompasses all of the Administrator and SYSTEM privs and also adds a few handy extra commands that even these accounts cannot provide (listed below)

<Make> commands

Make Soup

Make Tea

Make Bed

Make bad monster explode

Make whoopee

<stop> commands

Stop Go

Stop Start

(listed in Start menu - Start>Stop>Start) this command stops start from starting stop and allows start to stop start stopping start - excellent for those long night in yourself when you've nothing better to do!

Hope none of the hackers out there find out about this megapriv account or the fact that most people use Administrator or even that some use system account

[chocolate]

admin

simple ... ^^