Running PC as Administrator

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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.

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Avatar said:
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!
Click to expand...


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:



You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having
both at once. - RAH
 
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.

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