Wednesday, March 22, 2006
Running as a non-administator on Windows XP
When running as an administrator, malicious websites can take advantage of the elevated privleges that an administrator has and they can wreak havoc on your system. Viruses can also take over your system and do a lot of damage when being run as an administrator.
I have run as a non-administrator on my system at work (by company policy) and at home now for quite some time. I am quite pleased with the results.
To be able to do some administrative tasks, however, it is very annoying to log off of your account and log back in under the Administator account. To get around this you can use the "runas" command to run Internet Explorer. That is the way that I have been doing it. I won't tell you exactly how to do that, though, because I found a better way. I'll explain...
When Windows Vista and Internet Explorer 7 come out, the trick of running IE as an administrator won't work anymore. This is because Microsoft is finally breaking the ties between Internet Explorer and Windows Explorer. As I've tested the Internet Explorer 7 Beta previews I've come to realize that my tricks won't work on Windows XP after Internet Explorer 7 comes out.
I found a way around it today! You can run Windows Explorer as a separate process and it works! Here's how:
First, run regedit.exe as an administrator and navigate to HKCU \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Explorer \ Advanced. Change the SeparateProcess value from 0 to 1. This will cause explorer to run as a separate process under the administrator user account.
Next (as an administrator) make a batch file called admin.bat in the c:\windows\system32 folder. In that file paste the following:
[code]@ECHO OFF
runas /user:Administrator /savecred %1[/code]
Now, under a non-administrator account, go to start...run... and type "admin explorer" You'll then get a new Windows Explorer window that is running with full administrative privileges. You can then complete any administrative task without logging off and back on.
(Hint found at this site.)
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Windows Vista Delayed
ReplyDeleteMicrosoft pushes its gaming-friendly OS into early 2007.
by David Adams
March 22, 2006 - The PC gaming faithful have reason to pay attention to Windows Vista. Microsoft's new operating system promises not only various usability and security improvements, but plenty of support for gaming, not the least of which is DirectX 10 integration.
As if to emphasize the point, Microsoft is tying the PC version of Halo 2 to the new Windows; the game requires Vista in order to run, meaning Master Chief's newest missions won't be available to the mouse-and-keyboard set before the OS ships (Microsoft has yet to announce a release date for the game).
Unfortunately, that may be later than initially expected. Microsoft confirmed today that Windows Vista won't reach a wide audience until early 2007, instead of in the second part of 2006 as previously announced. Microsoft is delaying the consumer launch in part to accommodate PC manufacturers incorporating Vista.
Gamers savvy at sneaking in playtime at the office may be in luck, however. While Vista's broad launch doesn't come until next year, the system is still set to arrive for corporate customers in November 2006.
Microsoft is planning a second Vista beta test this spring.
Just a short note.
Thanks for the info, Tyler! Hopefully with all of the delays, Microsoft will actually get it right! Don't worry about Halo 2 running only on Vista, I'm sure that someone will come up with a hack to make it work on Windows XP.
ReplyDeleteUnless you are trying to play farcry
ReplyDeleteFor some reason it worked fine when running as a Power User. It looks like at least Power User permissions are required on a computer to have it still remain useful. I've been running as a Power User now ever since the party and I haven't had any issues. I guess that there is a reason why SDL has everyone running as a Power User.
ReplyDeleteWhy, so we can play Farcry at work?
ReplyDeleteNo, because you can't do anything as just a 'User.' Users don't even have enough privileges to insert a USB key and use it, as far as I remember. They give us Power User privileges so that we can actually do our work without having to type in an administrator password to do what we need to do.
ReplyDelete