ACCESSING OTHER PASSWORD-PROTECTED USER ACCOUNTS BY ADMINISTRATOR

[Guest]

Our daughter has password protected her limited account. We know that as
administrators we can get into her account by overriding her password and
creating a new password. We would like to look at her account without
changing her password (which would possible aleart her to our activities).
We would like to know what she is doing without her knowing. Is there a way
we can do this?

 

[Bruce Chambers]

Our daughter has password protected her limited account. We know that as
administrators we can get into her account by overriding her password and
creating a new password. We would like to look at her account without
changing her password (which would possible aleart her to our activities).
We would like to know what she is doing without her knowing. Is there a way
we can do this?

No, there isn't. You could also take ownership of your daughter's
files, but she's immediately know that you'd done so the next time she
tried to access them. This is a deliberate check and balance built into
the OS to help assure users and auditors that administrators are not
abusing their privileges and snooping where they oughtn't. I'm afraid
you'll just have to be honest with your daughter and tell her that your
trust must be earned. Until that time, she needs to let you see her files.


--

Bruce Chambers

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They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
safety deserve neither liberty nor safety. -Benjamin Franklin

Many people would rather die than think; in fact, most do. -Bertrum Russell

 

[Patrick Keenan]

Our daughter has password protected her limited account. We know that as
administrators we can get into her account by overriding her password and
creating a new password. We would like to look at her account without
changing her password (which would possible aleart her to our activities).
We would like to know what she is doing without her knowing. Is there a
way
we can do this?

As Bruce says, there is no simple way to do this without her knowing, unless
you know her password. Even then, the Event Logs will give you away.

And if this is XP Pro - this scenario is not possible in XP Home - if
encryption was invoked in an attempt at privacy, and you take ownership you
won't see the files anyway because you need the acccount password. But if
you change the account password from outside the account, you will break the
encryption key, and what was hidden will be hidden from everyone forever
(unless she backed up the key, which is sadly uncommon). At that point,
you'll have not only broken into her area but also broken her stuff. And
that's probably not where you wanted to go with this.

There are some relatively elaborate ways to do this, for example imaging the
drive (ex. with Acronis True Image), mounting the image as another
read-only drive, and taking control of the files on that mounted drive.
This leaves the original files alone. But, it also leaves some big traces
elsewhere.

Ultimately I agree with Bruce- it would be best to be honest with your
daughter and involve her in the decision. But the simple fact that you
know she's got a password will tell her that you've already been looking.

HTH
-pk

 

[sgopus]

As a parent you have every right to look at those files, protecting our
children these days requires that we overlook all areas of our childrens
lives, and yes this is snooping, so tell your kids and be firm. I wouldn't
allow my kids to have private accounts that I didn't know the password
nor would I let them have unlimited access to the computer/internet, till I
was certain of their character. and when does that happen???
it's different with everyone

 

[Frank]

Our daughter has password protected her limited account. We know that as
administrators we can get into her account by overriding her password and
creating a new password. We would like to look at her account without
changing her password (which would possible aleart her to our activities).
We would like to know what she is doing without her knowing. Is there a way
we can do this?

****I would strongly suggest that you attend parenting classes.****