Day Two – let’s crack on!
Today’s challenge – Set Up A Standard User Account – Direct Link to Guide Page
This was the one that I was dreading: I must admit I have been guilty of running my primary account as an administrator account. Why is this a problem? Because if a virus or other malware gets onto my computer when I’m using it, it will have administrator privileges and have virtually unrestricted access to the computer and its data. If I were to only have a standard user account, the virus couldn’t do nearly as much damage. This is an important one!
Geoffrey: As noted, my primary user login was in fact an administrator account. Downgrading an administrator account on a Windows machine is fraught with danger however, so I’ve had to set up a new account to use on a day-to-day basis. I need to move all my programs and data across to this new account so it’s going to take some time. So let’s mark this one as Work In Progress and check back in at the end of the Challenge.
Juan: Thankfully this computer was set up by his companies IT department and Juan’s user account was set to a standard user, so again, Juan has nothing to do today. Good job Juan!
Diana: Diana’s new Macbook was set up with her primary account as an administrator. Thankfully she hasn’t done much with her computer so we were able to set up a new standard user for her and move her data across pretty easily.
Priscilla: Like Juan, Priscilla’s laptop was setup by her company IT department and her account was a standard user account, sort of. Her account has what are called “local administrator privileges”, which means she has administrator rights to her own computer but not to any others on the company network. This is still an issue as those elevated privileges can be used to deploy malware onto the corporate network and is still really bad. Priscilla recalls having been given “local administrator privileges” when some software was installed on her computer, but those rights were never removed. She doesn’t need those rights anymore, so a good time to drop back to a standard user account.
That’s Day 2 down, see you tomorrow!
Previous Days Here:
Day 0 – Introduction to the Team
Day 1 – Installing Operating System and Application Updates
