12 Days to a Healthy PC is designed to help you quickly make your computer faster, more responsive and healthier. We have listed steps beginning with Day 1 in order of importance. The view them all, begin here. Today we're dealing with usergroups and permissions.

Day 6

Default Login Usergroups

It is completely unnecessary and unwise to normally run Windows under the Admin account.  If you’re logged in under the admin account and happen to encounter a Trojan or other maleware, you suddenly give admin privileges to that code, which in turn can create other user accounts, delete files and even reformat your hard drive.

Creating a user account is only a few clicks away.  In the Control Panel, click the Users icon and then setup a new account with User or Power User privileges.  Then if you need to run as Admin you can easily logon as Admin and perform whatever system tasks that need to be completed.

Use The “Run As” Option

Use the run as option to run a program as Admin while logged in under another usergroup.  In Windows Explorer, click the program’s executable file you want to open, then hold the shift key and right-click the program icon.  Click the option for Run as. To log on using an Administrator account, click The following user, and in User name and Password, type the Administrator account name and password that you want to use.

Limiting permissions is one way of keeping your system secure from malicious intent.  While this is a passive way to elude code that can damage your system, it is as necessary as running a good anti-virus and anti-spyware program.

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