Resources for Running As A Limited User in Windows XP

• Overview
• Resources

Home | Working With Windows | Limited User Index

Overview

Windows users often run with Administrator privileges all the time as, by default, Windows XP grants administrative privileges to users at installation time. There is now a dedicated effort to encourage software vendors, programmers, Microsoft, and others to have a fully functioning user environment for the regular, non-administrative user, designated as Least-Privileged User Account or Limited User Account (LUA). The sites listed here discuss options, describe setup, tools, and other LUA details. The strategy is to only briefly log on or switch to an admin account for installing software and other administrative tasks and then log out or switch back. Currently, getting this done is problematic. There are limitations as some programs as their temp or configuration files need admin privileges. The sites shown here may list such programs as well as links to possible work-arounds.

Corporate and education environments lock down computers as a matter of course to protect the network and have a consistent computing environment for reliable technical support. The trick is to have a good process and appropriate drive images for particular user groups. A basic image might have Windows XP, an office suite like Microsoft Office and needed utilities like Adobe Acrobat Reader. Specific user group images would be built on such a foundation. If you are wondering how aggressively students or other users will work to defeat the strategy to have access to items to which they feel entitled (usually a game or instant messenger), search Google for the two strings "Hacking Windows XP" and "limited user."

Resources

• Aaron Margosis' Non-Admin Web Log - This site is a side project of a Senior Consultant with Microsoft Consulting Services. A table of contents page links to the why and how of running as a least privileged user. It is presented as a blog of articles and reader comments. It's encouraging that the next version of Windows, now called Vista, plans to include default low-privileged accounts. It is also encouraging that some of those in these discussions work at Microsoft.
  
  
• Problems of Privilege: Find and Fix LUA Bugs - a Microsoft TechNet article for developers and IT professionals that describes types of errors and techniques and options for working with anomalies that appear when users experience problems running with limited privileges. Includes links to more resources.
  
  
• nonadmin - "A community site for PC users who want to run as non-administrator (also known as least-privileged user accounts or limited-user accounts). Running as non-admin is a great way to improve your computer's security, and you don't need to buy any extra software to do it!" This site also links to other sites involved in the effort.
  
  
• More on Running Windows Under Non-Admin Accounts is an article on WindowsSecurity.Com and is a follow-up to a previous article on non-admin accounts.
  
  
• Applying the Principle of Least Privilege to User Accounts on Windows XP - a guide on the Microsoft TechNet site.
  
  
• Using a Least-Privileged User Account - MIcrosoft TechNet article on the subject. You will also want to review the "Certain Programs Do Not Work Correctly If You Log On Using a Limited User Account" Knowledgebase article, which includes a list of applications with problems running under LUA.
  
  
• MSDN: Developing Software in Visual Studio .NET with Non-Administrative Privileges - For developers, covering the details of creating a limited user account, access to various UI utilities, RunAs, different user credentials, networking credentials, editing registry keys, etc.
  
  
• Developer Best Practices and Guidelines for Applications in a Least Privileged Environment - from Microsoft: "This white paper provides guidelines and suggested best practices for independent software vendor (ISV) developers on how to integrate with the new security infrastructure of User Account Protection (UAP) on Microsoft Windows Vista Beta 1."
  
  
• How to troubleshoot program compatibility issues in Windows XP - a Microsoft Knowledgebase article: "This article describes how to troubleshoot the most common program compatibility issues that you may experience on your Windows XP-based computer. Program compatibility issues are often called 'application' compatibility issues."

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