Running Windows Without Administrator Privs?

javacowboy asks: "For a while now, I've been advising friends who run Windows to try running as a regular user, as opposed to running as administrator, which is the default setting. However, I switched to Mac a year and a half ago and I haven't run Windows since, so I'm probably not the best person to be giving this advice. Still, on a philosophical level, *trying* to run Windows as a non-admin, given the prevalence of viruses, worms, trojans, and spy-ware, seems to make sense. Have any of you tried to run Windows as a non-admin, and how did it work out for you? Are there certain tasks or certain software you need to be admin to run? How realistic is it to expect a Windows user to run their OS as non-root?"

Comments

Re:Forget it.

[senatorpjt]

Unforunately, only the people with the knowledge of how to prevent Windows from being compromised by running as Admininstrator in the first place are the only people who know how to set it up to run as a limited user.

It seems like Windows was set up so that the Administrator uses the Administrator account all the time, and if it's your personal computer, that's you - limited users are for when someone else is the Administrator.

Re:Not hard to do on a home computer...

[biglig2]

You put a keylogger on your gf's machine? I hope she doesn't read slashdot.