W2K8S Admin Account (W2K8S SP1)

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I had beta tested & used Vista Ultimate for about a 19 months & was turned off by the bloat, nags & incompatibilities, eventually going back to XP. Recently I was turned on to using Windows Server 2008 Standard as a workstation. Although sharing the same Vista-based kernel & requiring a bit more manual setup to turn Server into a workstation, I found it to be blazing fast, not suffering from the annoying UAC dialog boxes & being allowed unrestricted access to the command line when using the built-in Administrator account turned on by default.

My question is, that using this strictly as a workstation, are there any valid reasons to NOT operate under the built-in Admin account? I know there is the reduced security factor when doing so in XP, but is it different w/ Server editions, especially the enhanced Vista-based kernels?

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IMO, running using the builtin Administrator account is not better under Vista or W2k8 than under XP. The only exception would be the better code base with the newer OSes. Otherwise, you face the same risk if some malware gets on your sytem.

Joe

--Joe

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That’s what I’m wondering – the Server edition is supposed to have the better base code. The Windows server editions have them enabled by default & am under the impression they are normally used as root, but I’m not sure since I’ve never really used Windows Server OSs.

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The reason for not using an Administrator account is to protect you from mistakes and attacks. It has very little to do with the quality of the operating system code.

For example if someone emails you a vbs script that attempts to delete all of the critical system files, and you double click it by mistake…

StuartR

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The better code just means fewer known vulnerabilities. It does not prevent cockpit error.

Joe

--Joe

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Gotcha. OK, will follow the same protocol as done in XP – thanks, guys

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