Linked by Thom Holwerda on Sun 27th Apr 2008 15:23 UTC
Just about everyone using Windows XP runs the operating system as administrator - or root, if you come from a UNIX background. Such is the case because Microsoft, in its infinite wisdom, figured it somehow made sense to give every user full access to the system, and to more or less completely ignore the intricate and advanced security systems in place in Windows NT and the NTFS file system. This kind of turned out to be a very bad idea, and allowed Microsoft and its 3rd party developers to become hopelessly sloppy; most Windows applications more or less assumed they were run by administrators. It also allowed malware full access to the system when executed. Cue User Account Control.
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Member since:
2007-05-20
True, but there are really many apps that won't run without admin privileges. You can adjust things like registry / directory permissions and a few will finally make it, but the typical XP "always admin" user does not know how to do these things.
It does. They have been silently promoting this "all admin" stuff. They have been certifying all kind of third party apps with their "designed for XP", "compatible with XP" logos, and most of these would only run as admin. In fact, they were doomed from the start: XP had to maintain Win9X compatibility (lots of people went straight from 98 to XP, without going through NT or 2000) and 9X had no concept of user levels or permissions. Now they have to hack their way into the secure mode, with UAC, "the not so admin-admin" etc. They will get there eventually. This is a transition phase.