Do you login as admin?

Just curious.  Maybe this should be a poll, but I'd like to how know many people out there actually run as a non-admin user and can successfully do your daily busines with Windows XP.

the user i login to my workstation at both home and work is the admin of the machine. not necessarrally named Administrator, but still an admin, none the less. i dont see why not either. certin things on my machine, as most people know, cannot be done without admin rights. so, to work properly, i need admin access.

I know Mike (Howard) will probably die a painfull death when realizing that people out there running XP are pretty much a sad case of  (and i quote)
"everyone is an admin !!"

the problem is Windows does not ship "Secure by Default" .. they've done a better jobon WinXP.. kinda.. but its still pretty open.. I know of VERY few companies that actually only allow normal users on their own desktops..

sad.. but true..    I myself run as admin..  ships that way, works that way, so I Keep it that way ! (Yes another lame excuse of "but stuff breaks when I'm not an admin")


sorry Mike..  its an ongoing battle ! 

As a developer you have to run as admin on the local machine....how else are you gonna edit the registry and install the latest security patches and drivers?

Not to mention create software that works on your computer, but has security exceptions when any of your 'users' run it

Hello

I'd first like to say that I think Channel9 is a great idea and I'm excited about seeing how it evolves over the next year or so.

Do I run as admin on my computer? No, I don't. I have WindowsXP Pro and I have two user accounts: an admin account which I use sparingly, and a limited user account I use for day to day stuff. When I need to do something requiring admin rights, I simply open an IE instance with my admin account using Run As...

Using Run As... seems to suit all my needs with maybe one or two rare exceptions. I can defrag, edit the registry, and configure security policies just to name a few.

Regards
Glenn Nitschke

Well, I tried. I promise, I honestly tried, when I re-installed Windows a few month ago.

But since a few weeks I switched my limited account to an admin account again.

It's not so much the application, which will not run on a account with restricted access (you can use "run as" or give such an application additional rights), but it is two issues that really annoyed me:

* You cannot run the explorer using "run as". Anybody managed to do that?

* You cannot use fast user switching when the welcome login screen is disabled.

At work I'll change my user profile when needed. In times when I don't need much admin rights, I'll go down to Power User. But at the moment I'm running admin cause I need to test some new tools and play around with some services.
At home I'm just a user and it works out great for me ... but I share that computer with my girlfriend and she keeps nagging about the freedom she had in Win98/Me. She sometimes gets mad about it and thinks I don't trust her.  

Michael Elsdoerfer wrote:

* You cannot run the explorer using "run as". Anybody managed to do that?

You can do this by running IE with RunAs and then go to your local hard drive and switch to 'Folders' view.

I usualy open up a "cmd" with Runas, and execute IE in there.

Nope, but I know I should. I may give it a go at home when I nuke'n'pave my laptop next time.

Too many workarounds required when using VS.Net as a non-Admin, esp. related to interop. I run as Admin all the time.

"You cannot run the explorer using "run as". Anybody managed to do that?"

From Peter Torr's blog ( http://weblogs.asp.net/ptorr/archive/2004/03/21/93352.aspx )

"you can run Windows Explorer (and the related control panel applets) from your Admin account as long as you've set the "Run Explorer windows in a separate process" option from the admin account. Run regedit from your Admin console, navigate to:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\ Software\ Microsoft\ Windows\ CurrentVersion\ Explorer\ Advanced

and set the SeparateProcess DWORD to 0x01."

I work for county gov and we have a well implemented network, everyone logs on as a user, even the network admins and yes even us (the programmers). As long as you have someone that knows how to manage MS networks you should never have to log in as an administrator. That being said, some groups have certain admin rights on their workstations.

At home, I rarely have a need to log in as admin. I have a stable network of several different operating systems including a Palm IIIc as well as a linux based handheld. The home network offers me wireless as well as cat5 connections giving my complete roaming freedom.

So... no, I don't run as admin unless I need to do admin things. =)

I work for an ISP and we run our workstations as Admin, although if I use TS from home, my login is on the AD and im not in the admin group, yet i have very few problems with VS.

I think in general though there's that many things that need admin privs, that's it's hard not to run as admin.

gmiley wrote:

 As long as you have someone that knows how to manage MS networks you should never have to log in as an administrator.

That's the problem right there. Most companies dont have people that are actually certified ( or have even read a book) on domain / AD adminstration and the users are the ones who end up suffering.

I always add my domain account to the local admin group as soon as I get a new pc. It's the only way I can actually get around the badly designed domain policies and get my work done.

Ironically, for many of us we can't do our jobs as non-admin, because admin functions of various kinds are required throughout the day (i.e. installing programs, compiling stuff, dropping temp tables, etc.)  I think you are asking the wrong group of people.  There are a fair number of "regular users", one example group is (ironically) called "administrative assistants", who don't really need those other functions and are usually logged in as "non-admin" users.  That has been the case at most of the br/click and mortar businesses I have seen.  Software companies are not that way, though.

Isn't Admin the only way to run? I am unaware of this domain account you speak of.

* You cannot run the explorer using "run as". Anybody managed to do that?

CumpsD and Peter: Thanks for the tips. Works now for me too..