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[Kevin Ar18]

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[BlazinX]

Why would you want to do that?

 

[Kevin Ar18]

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[surge]

you cant deleate the built in account for the Administrator in XP or win 2000.
who ever told you it was a security risk was lieing to you.
as long as the Administrator account has a password set to it there wont be any problems

you will need to set a passwrd if you chouse to Upgrade to xp from with in Win 98 or win ME becasue by default it only asks you to set a password for your login account, but if you do a Full install from the cd or when u install Xp from the above O/S's
you set the admin pasd when u are installing XP.

hope that clears the problem up for ya

 

[Iceman]

Where did you hear it's a security risk? It isn't a security risk, better to leave it alone mate.

 

[Kevin Ar18]

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[surge]

no problem m8

 

[Binary]

But it is a security risk!! When you try to log in without knowing either login name or password, the change that you guess both is pretty slim (provided you choose not-so-easy name/password). With the Administrator account you don't have to guess the login name: you already know it. So you only have to guess the password. That's a security risk alright, but in Home Edition you can't do anything about it. BG thinks that security is no issue at home, so...

 

[Device]

You need the administrator account. If you ever going to use the repair console and you don't have an admin account with pass, you're screwed.

 

[Binary]

In WinXP Pro you can actually rename the Administrator account to whatever you like. And you need the password of the Administrator account (whatever named) to gain access to the Recovery Console. And I never says you could/should delete it, did I?

 

[Iceman]

Originally posted by Binary
But it is a security risk!! When you try to log in without knowing either login name or password, the change that you guess both is pretty slim (provided you choose not-so-easy name/password). With the Administrator account you don't have to guess the login name: you already know it. So you only have to guess the password. That's a security risk alright, but in Home Edition you can't do anything about it. BG thinks that security is no issue at home, so...

sorry Binary, I read your post 5 times and still don't understand what your saying. Could you clarify it a little more, or explain it better, as I would like to hear how the admin account is a security risk. I guess by the same token any account with admin privileges is a security risk.

 

[Binary]

No, of course not. When a person does not know the name of an account and does not know the password, then the combination of the two is what's keeping him from entering. Compare it to having two separate locks on a door.
When one of the keys is lying on the floor just in front of the door, then that lock is of no use at all, so effectively you have only one lock that must be picked to gain entry.
Similarly, when the name of the account is known (you know it is Administrator), you have only the password to guess.
In WinXP Pro you can rename the account to anyting you like, so in that situation you do have a name and a password that must be guessed before being able to enter.

 

[surge]

Originally posted by Binary
But it is a security risk!! When you try to log in without knowing either login name or password, the change that you guess both is pretty slim (provided you choose not-so-easy name/password). With the Administrator account you don't have to guess the login name: you already know it. So you only have to guess the password. That's a security risk alright, but in Home Edition you can't do anything about it. BG thinks that security is no issue at home, so...

Security Risk? where did you read that? jsut rename and set a password for the admin account, you sound like u are parrinoid ,
about being Hacked. dont worry about the "secrutiy risk" its not a risk. if you think you might for get the password to the accounts on your pc just make a pasword reset disk in the user accounts section of control pannel. who ever told you it was a risk needs to get there facts right.

 

[Iceman]

I still for the life of me don't get it.

What do you mean doesn't know the name of the account? shows up everytime you log in, or switch users.

as far as the admin account all somebody has to do is boot your machine up in safe mode to view it.

If your talking getting hacked from outside your box (ie. Internet) if you use a password with a combination of letters (lowercase & uppercase), numbers, and special characters ($). You are pretty safe actually.

There is no reason to get rid of the admin account, change the name sure if your paranoid, get rid of it totally, only if you get rid of any outside connections to your computer, bye bye Internet.

just my opinion

 

[Binary]

Well yes, if you have the defaults set. But that's easy to switch off. And if you have really important stuff on a laptop, me thinks you want to disable all the stuff that makes it easy to boot straight into Windows. You can set things so that you have to really type both name and password. And if it's that important, that's what you should do. OK, you have nothing to hide, and your PC is safely tucked away in your private bedroom. But that's not the situation for everybody. There are situations thinkable that might make it necessary to increase the safety standards a little. And if you don't see that, well sorry, but that doesn't make it less real.

 

[Iceman]

Point taken

Yes if you have very sensitive things on your machine of course extreme measures are needed.

However, for the common XP user, these measures are not needed and can create real problems if you don't know exactly what your doing.

 

[surge]

but if you set a password to the admin accont and some one does try to log in as admin they cant. if ya worried about security then use a 3rd party tool that will stop unatuherised ppl from loging in to the pc , there is this one security device that need u to plug in a unit into the usb port , so when windows boots up after loging in you can use the pc, if u take out the key from the USB port then it desables the pc, its like what they use at the jobcenter, if you have been in one of thoes you will know what iam talking about.

 

[Binary]

Sure, that's all true. There are lots of (software and hardware) features thinkable to increase security. Though a maybe little beyond the point raised in the first question. As long as we can agree that there may be situations that need more security than the basic stuff WinXP Home Edition can provide. WinXP Professional does a hell of a lot better, but it all depends on what you really need. I agree that the basic home user has no need for all that stuff, but everybody must decide for themselves what the want, even if it's only to play with. And yes, if you play too much without knowing what you're doing, that can have some adverse (though interesting) effects.