Login as Administrator or Not?

[Phil]

I have Windows XP Professional on a home computer as a
stand alone box with internet connection through dialup.
My default login is the administrator account without a
password since I am the only user. Should I activate
another user account with administrator priviledges to
better protect my PC?

 

[sqr]

If you don't believe me just post your IP and I will show you.

 

[rifleman]

I have Windows XP Professional on a home computer as a
stand alone box with internet connection through dialup.
My default login is the administrator account without a
password since I am the only user. Should I activate
another user account with administrator priviledges to
better protect my PC?

Yes, because if your log-in as Administrator goes belly-up for whatever
reason, you have NO WAY of getting into your PC without doing a repair
installation. I'm sure others will think of equally valid reasons for
not doing so!

 

[null]

Yes YEs and YES again nobody should EVER EVER use the default admin to run a
computer. Better yet create another account without admin privileges to run
the computer and when you want to make changes log into admin to do them.

Also, he should:

1. Rename the Administrator account to make it much more difficult to
hack it.
2. He should also create another account with Administrator privileges
just in case the renamed Administrator account gets corrupted.
3. All Admin-equivalent accounts should have passwords of at least
15-characters.
4. He should create an Emergency Recovery Disk.

--
-the small one

All postings carry no guarantee or warranty, expressed or implied.
Proceed at your own risk, and perform system and data backups prior to
making changes to your system, and on a regular basis, to protect your
system.

 

[Phil]

I'll do as suggested - rename Administrator account,
create another account with admin priviledges, routinely
use yet another account with restricted privs and use 15
character passwords for all accounts. However, one other
question - how to make an Emergency Recovery Disk in Win
XP Pro?

 

[sqr]

also use TweakUI for automatic logins if you do not want to type the stuff
in when you have it setup.

ASR setup in xp....
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;818903