Microsoft Employees May Lose Admin Rights

daria42 writes "As Microsoft moves its internal desktop systems to Windows Vista, the company is contemplating whether to change a long running tradition and take away admin rights from its employees in order to improve security." From the article: "'We haven't made that final determination yet. We would like to absolutely look at scenarios where we can look at elements of User Access Control -- that is the feature in Vista -- so that we can start moving in that direction ... It is a tough balance and every company has to decide what is right for them,' said Estberg. However, Estberg said that for the moment, the company will continue to leave the responsibility of installing software with its employees."

Comments

Let's hope they do

[creepynut]

Who better to test and actually use the "User Access Control" than Microsoft's own employees?

Clearly, they weren't "trying out" the Limited User accounts when Windows XP was in its infancy. Otherwise, it might actually be useful to us today.

Would this mean...

[zappepcs]

Would this mean that if they switch MS employees to Vista with only user rights, that Vista would be delayed yet another couple of years while they work out the bugs? If it doesn't work for MS employees, it can't possibly work well for anyone else. Surely, they have to make sure it works since its part of securing the system. Right?

Re:"Unusual practice" ... wtf.

[vought]

I don't know of a large company that still lets most employees install software, have admin rights, or do anything like that. The desktop PC has to be locked down if you want to manage 100000 desktops on a modern IT budget.

You forgot about Apple. You know - the little company that makes iPods.

Over 10,000 employees, each with admin rights. No viruses, no malware, no screwed up OS that lets any process run with global read/write priviedges...no kidding.

The only difference is that they don't run Windows on those desktops.