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Best practice for single user of Windows XP at home 1

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KC78

Technical User
Mar 17, 2004
16
US
I recently formatted my computer and installed Windows XP Pro. I'm the only one using it at home. It defaults to the out-of-the-box Administrator account, which is fine. However, my question is, should I be using this account? I've heard from some that it doesn't matter, or that I really should only use that account for installations etc.... and create another account (with admin rights??) and use that.

I've also read that people just change the Administrator account's name to their favorite name and continue using it. However, I have a concern....... I know how Windows links everything to everything and all the programs that I have installed have reference paths to //......administrator...... so I don't think that's a good option or maybe????

I just don't quite like how everything is in this My Documents and Settings folder, and you have to drill down so much to get stuff. So I would liike to keep it as simple as possible.

Basically, how safe is it to use the default administrator account as the everyday user account? What are the best practices? I've heard stories of people hacking into "logged-on" accounts and they can't do anything to accounts that aren't logged on, and that the administrator account should never be logged on while I'm on the inter net. I've heard it doesn't matter, because hackers have password programs, I've heard that it's not account specific at all, just getting into the computer. I just want to keep the system clean and nice because I know it is very transparent to the user where files are installed depending on which account you're logged on...... and I'm very anal. : ) I'm so confused and tired of researching and any recommendation is greatly appreciated.
 
Set your surfing user up as a Limited User so "nasties" can't do major damage to your system.
These following sites are general security sites which will help you with some security ideas.

Beginners Guides: Spyware Protection and Removal
This is an 8 page article but worth the read.

Here's one from CERT, the Carnegie-Mellon Software Engineering Institute.




Microsoft TechNet Security - Columns

 
Thanks Linney.....for your troubles....no offense, but I'm not really a novice when it comes to the importance of protecting my system.

I was really looking more on the lines of Best Practices, how users from experience would setup Windows XP's funny Document and Settings accounts.

But by all means, thanks for your time and effort!!!
 
I've been on the default Admin program since I installed XP 2 years ago - no problems. Of course, I have up to date anti-virus, Firewall ( a real firewall, not Windows ICF) and run Ad-aware twice a week. I keep up to date on Windows updates. I'm on dial-up so my "address" changes constantly.
 
You can have the My Documents folder anywhere you like - it doesn't have to be in %systemdrive%\Documents and Settings\<username>\My Documents.

You can point your Outlook files to anywhere as well.

On my work PC there is a local admin account which I don't use, but my LAN account has local admin rights. The My Documents folder there is in my home directory on the LAN.

At home my PC has the default Admininstrators account but that doesn't get used much, except for admin tasks like creating/modifying user accounts (family etc) Only my wife and I have a user account each there with admin rights.

Works for me.

Cheers - Tim
 
I agree with Tim!

Although switching users can be a pain sometimes, it's one more level of security.

Switching users for an install, or update, is something that you get used to quickly.

On my Wife's PC (where the home office is constantly pushing updates) I had to assign her (a limited user) rights to all the directories the updates use. Took a while to figure out though, and she still has to log on as Administrator occasionally.
 
Should have mentioned that we keep all data in a folder called "Data" at the root directory (with subdirectories for Word, Excel, Eudora, Photos, Music, etc.)
 
Any use to you?

310147 - How to Change the Default Location of the My Documents Folder

HOW TO: Set the My Documents Folder as "Private" in Windows XP

Cannot Move or Rename the Documents and Settings Folder

315194 - Event 7000 Occurs If You Redirect the "Documents and Settings" Folder

818134 - The %HOMEDRIVE% Environment Variable Does Not Point to the Partition That Hosts the User Profiles

HOW TO: Delete a User Profile in Windows 2000 (Q313918)

How to Identify a Damaged User Profile and Create a New Profile (Q305506)

User Data Is Missing After You Delete a User Account (Q313877)

811151 - How to Copy User Data to a New User Profile
 
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