Multiple account woes

[Boatman]

I have XP Pro and I have 3 user accounts set up on it (4 if you include the
hidden administrator account). Two of the accounts have
restricted status and the third is admin which I use. Basically the other
two accounts are for family members who are not real computer savy and it's
up to me to keep them out of computer trouble as best I can. I use Spyware
Blaster, SpyBot S&D, and Ad-Aware regularly when logged in from my account,
but I'm beginning to suspect that these don't help the other accounts. Is
this correct? If so, what to do? I recently found out though this newsgoup
that MS Disk Cleanup only works for the account it's run from as well. Both
Crap Cleaner or Easy Clean work the same way. Any general comments or
advice? Thanks!

Boatman

 

[Americantechie]

What leads you to believe these programs are not doing their jobs for the
other accounts? If a program has been built with the ability to limit use
to certain accounts, you will be asked which accounts should be allowed to
use the program during the installation process. The easiest way to check
to see if these programs are working is to log into one of the user accounts
in question and check to see they are running. Even if the programs were
disabled when a certain user logs in, they would still pick up spyware/virus
infections that were contracted by the activities of other users. If your
spyware/virus scans on your account are finding infections, then it would be
time to be concerned. In this case you would have to change the settings of
your AV software, make sure your system is properly patched, and make sure
you have the proper settings for your browser to help keep yourself
protected.

 

[Richard Urban [MVP]]

Most of the anti spyware programs I have used only check "My Cookies" and
"My Favorites" etc from the accounts they are running from (and this is
where a lot of the crap is found). They do not touch these categories when
they exist in another account. The general operating system would be checked
when running the software from any account.

An example is this: Spybot Search and Destroy can not be made to check these
folders in the built in "administrators" account - even if you want it to.
You can check "All Users", "Default User" and your own account By default it
will only check YOUR account. You can add the others by adding directories
under the "settings/directories" setting. But the default administrator
account is not an option.

It may well be that all of the accounts are checked when you run a
"thorough" scan, as opposed to the default "quick scan". I haven't checked
the log files created by the anti spyware programs to verify this. I will
now have to check this out.

Do you know of an anti spyware program that, by design, will check these
categories in every users account - even though the account is not the
logged on user?

--
Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User

Quote from: George Ankner
"If you knew as much as you thought you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!"

 

[Rock]

I have XP Pro and I have 3 user accounts set up on it (4 if you include the
hidden administrator account). Two of the accounts have
restricted status and the third is admin which I use. Basically the other
two accounts are for family members who are not real computer savy and it's
up to me to keep them out of computer trouble as best I can. I use Spyware
Blaster, SpyBot S&D, and Ad-Aware regularly when logged in from my account,
but I'm beginning to suspect that these don't help the other accounts. Is
this correct? If so, what to do? I recently found out though this newsgoup
that MS Disk Cleanup only works for the account it's run from as well. Both
Crap Cleaner or Easy Clean work the same way. Any general comments or
advice? Thanks!

Boatman

You need to run those programs from each of the accounts.