Are Limited User Accounts effective?

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Summary: Limited User Accounts in Windows restrict the ability of malware to cause problems on your system. Unfortunately, it may also limit your ability as well.

In a word, yes - Limited User Accounts are very effective at reducing the potential impact of a virus or spyware.

Unfortunately my experience has been that they're also effective at reducing your abilities in other areas as well.

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I'll be honest ... every time I've attempted to set up a Limited User Account (often referred to as LUA), I've been frustrated, and eventually ended up reverting that account to full administrative privileges.

My frustration is not with LUA itself, per se, but with other software.

The concept behind LUA is simple: you don't need every privilege on your machine in order to do most day-to-day activities. Surfing the web, sending email, writing documents or balancing your checkbook do not, and should not, require anything other than the most basic of permissions on the computer.

Taking away certain types of permissions - such as the ability to write to certain system directories, install activex controls and the like - means that it's more difficult for malware to do those things if you happen to run across it as a Limited User. Since so much malware relies on exactly those types of operations, it's actually a very effective strategy.

And yes, even though I have my own frustrations with it, I do recommend it, if possible, as a very valid step towards increasing the overall security of your system. I particularly like the idea of families setting up their children's accounts on a shared computer with LUA.

To do so, by the way, in Control Panel, User Accounts, click on the account you wish to change, click on Change My Account Type, and then select Limited. Note that you will not be able to change the primary Administrator account, and that not surprisingly, you need administrative privileges to actually do this to any account.

Now, about my frustration.

Every time I try to run as an LUA, I keep running into things that I can't do. Things that I want to do. For example installing software in general is an issue using an LUA. If that software expects to be installed for the current user, then logging in as the administrator to install it may still not set up the software for use in another Limited account on the same machine.

Now, to be fair, there are often workarounds. One could temporarily elevate the Limited account to administrator just long enough to install whatever software needs installing. But there are also frequently still complications, and it's certainly an additional, somewhat cumbersome step to what's typically already a complicated process.

Now I definitely understand that there is a fundamental conflict here - you want to prevent installation of malware, while allowing the installation of trusted applications. Unfortunately there's no easy way to distinguish, so LUAs must prohibit both - or at least those that affect protected system areas.

The more fundamental problem is that while many applications do need it, too many assume administrative privileges when they don't. As a result, they fail when installed or run from LUAa.

If there's good news in all this, it's the answer to your other question about anti-spyware and anti-virus software. Most of these applications are installed at the system level, and as such work on the entire machine, regardless of what user you happen to be logged in as, or even whether you're logged in at all.

So, yes, I'm one of those folks who apparently needs to use software that requires or assumes administrative privileges often enough that running as an LUA is simply not a practical option for me. My advice to you: try it. I know I'm an edge case - I do a lot of things that more normal people don't. You may find that all your needs are met in an LUA, and as a result, you will definitely be safer.

Related:

• Ask Leo! - Internet Safety: How do I keep my computer safe on the internet?

• Ask Leo! - How do I get administrative privileges on Windows XP?