Do you bother with a separate admin acc for single user pc?

freebooter · 2 Dec 2015 at 10:23

I am talking about a home pc only used by myself. I am considering whether it is worth setting up a separate admin local account with administrator rights and then having my day to day outlook account as a standard, non-admin account.

Would it really offer extra security over running one acc as admin and relying on UAC?

mrk · 2 Dec 2015 at 11:12

Some will say yes, some will say no. Both have their reasons, there is no right or wrong.

I have one account only, always have and always will. Never had anything be compromised. It works for me!

ED209 · 2 Dec 2015 at 12:14

only have 1 account as im the only one that uses my PC so no need for any other accounts

Stoner81 · 2 Dec 2015 at 12:54

Only ever had one account of my machine/s since I am the only one who uses it.

Stoner81.

SC0TTRS · 2 Dec 2015 at 12:59

Set up Admin account on the parent's laptop.

They use a standard, locked down one.

Can't trust parents these days!

Scottland · 2 Dec 2015 at 13:31

SC0TTRS said:
Set up Admin account on the parent's laptop.

They use a standard, locked down one.

Can't trust parents these days!

I do the same, seems to help with malware infestations.

bledd · 2 Dec 2015 at 13:36

I give myself read-only access to most of my NAS. On the off-chance that I get one of those dreaded crypto viruses.

snowdog · 2 Dec 2015 at 15:08

No, only on work pc's.

At home UAC and all the security crud can go **** itself.

UAC disabled, and always enable the hidden/disabled ''administrator'' account, and promptly use that for everything.

On work lappy I do use a passworded Admin account ( not a regular user, that'd drive me mad with all the UAC/runasadmin enter pw prompts) and have UAC on a medium-low level, but also only because I ''have to'', personally I hope all the unnecessary prompts burn in hell, viruses and malware gets on anyhow with a user that doesn't use common sense with executables, regardless of these security ''measures''.

murah · 2 Dec 2015 at 15:23

^ this, UAC is a royal pain

Glanza · 2 Dec 2015 at 16:09

ED209 said:
only have 1 account as im the only one that uses my PC so no need for any other accounts

+1

KIA · 2 Dec 2015 at 18:09

freebooter said:
I am talking about a home pc only used by myself. I am considering whether it is worth setting up a separate admin local account with administrator rights and then having my day to day outlook account as a standard, non-admin account.

Would it really offer extra security over running one acc as admin and relying on UAC?

Having a standard user account is best practice because the user has to enter a password before privilege elevation can take place, similar to the sudo command on Linux. A regular Windows account has standard user privileges until UAC elevation occurs.

Be a member of the administrators group and keep UAC enabled if you want convenience, or use a standard user account if you want better protection.

craig_t · 2 Dec 2015 at 18:48

ED209 said:
only have 1 account as im the only one that uses my PC so no need for any other accounts

+1

freebooter · 3 Dec 2015 at 19:57

Thanks for the replies. I have been a linux user for years so I an used to separate admin accounts or using sudo for admin tasks.

At the moment I am leaning towards just having one acc as my usage is pretty low risk but I may try the separate admin account and just turn the main account into admin if the separate account becomes too annoying.

KIA · 4 Dec 2015 at 18:31

freebooter said:
At the moment I am leaning towards just having one acc as my usage is pretty low risk but I may try the separate admin account and just turn the main account into admin if the separate account becomes too annoying.

No more annoying than Linux & OSX.