"Larry" <> wrote in message
news:2C8F0F48-365B-4AD4-B5F8-...
> If I am the only one that has access to my machine does it really matter
> if I
> don't put in any passwords or make any accounts and just let it use a
> default
> admin password?
If you ever connect the computer to the Internet, you may very well not
be the only one who has access to your computer. If you use the computer
for anything more important than playing Vista's built-in games, then I'd
say that security should be a serious concern.
The built-in Administrator account really isn't intended to be used for
day-to-day normal use. The standard security practice is to rename the
account, set a strong password on it, and use it only to create another
account for regular use, reserving the Administrator account as a "back
door" in case something corrupts your regular account(s).
As for other accounts with administrative privileges, routinely using a
computer with administrative privileges is not without some risk. You will
be much more susceptible to some types of malware, particularly adware and
spyware. While using a computer with limited privileges isn't the cure-all,
silver bullet that some claim it to be, any experienced IT professional will
verify that doing so definitely reduces that amount of damage and depth of
penetration by the malware. If you get infected/infested while running as
an administrator, the odds are much greater that any malware will be
extremely difficult, if not impossible, to remove with formatting the hard
drive and starting anew. The intruding malware will have the same
privileges to all of the files on your hard drive that you do.
As long as you're willing and able to deal with the potentially
catastrophic consequences, the choice is certainly yours. A technically
competent user who is aware of the risks and knows how to take proper
precautions can usually safely operate with administrative privileges; I do
so myself. I simply don't recommend it for the average computer user.
--
Bruce Chambers
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