User Accounts

[LAKuiper]

I have Media Center 2005 with one account setup by OEM (Gateway) as Owner.
It is an administrator account. I also have Norton Internet Security 2006.

Do I need to create another user account as a limited account for myself in
order to have Windows work properly? It almost seems that the OS is looking
for another user account to be setup as a limited account?

 

[Guest]

The short answer to this is "Yes".

The administrator account isn't meant to be used on a day to day basis.
Also, every hacker in the world knows that there's an Administrator account
called Owner on certain PC's - so half of their job is done. Having no
password or an easy password on it does the rest of the job for a hacker - so
put a good, secure password on it for your own sake.

If this account is being used while you're on the web, it's what's gonna be
targeted by the hackers. But, if you use another account to surf with - then
the hackers won't know the name or the password - so it's that much harder
for them to get in.

Then, if you use a limited account rather than an administrator account
it'll be even more secure - because if a hacker does get in they won't be
able to do anything "administratively" to your system (that's why it's called
a limited account).

And, FYI, for most things all you need is a limited account. If you do
happen to need Administrator privileges to do something you can hold down
Shift while right clicking on the file that you're trying to open and select
"Run As...". This will open a dialog that will let you use the
Administrative user name and password to run that program as if it was an
Administrator.

Good luck!

- John