Good practice with User setup on new laptop

I'd like to get some input on what is the best practice on user setup with a brand new laptop.

I read people rename administrator account for security reason, and set up another user acct with admin right. Some recommend do not use admin right for the daily use. But that is not very convenient. How many of you do not have admin right for your main account?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

I don't rename my default admin account. It just remains unused.

My user has admin rights, mainly cause I know what I am doing, and not afraid I'd mess up something. Plus I am the only one that uses my computers, so no worry from that.

The only reason I find for no administrative rights is just preventing a none experienced user, or a guest user messing stuff up.

 

Do you set a long secure password for your default unused admin account?

 

It's interesting: as soon as I created another user with admin right, and logged off the administrator account, the "administrator" login disappeared from the welcome logon screen.

 

Administrator is accessable only in Safe Mode as a login option. You can force it to log in in regular mode under Pro only. It has more rights than a "computer administrator" account. For example, if you have a virus, the Administrator account is the best one to use for removal (under Safe Mode of course).

You should NEVER use the Administrator account as your user account.

 

Thanks for your explaination.

I did not have a password for the "administrator" account. Now it disappeared, should I go to safe mode and give it a password for security reason? Is it ok to leave it like this without a password assigned to the hidden "administrator" account?

Thanks!

 

It's a good idea to password the admin account because of it's power. You can change the password for it from any account however.

Start > run > cmd
type: net user administrator *
press enter, and it will prompt you for the current password. if you don't have one, press enter. then you can set up a new password.

 

Really? I think you can press Ctrl+Alt+Del at the Windows XP Welcome logon
screen and use any user account. Also, it takes only a small registry tweak to
enable Administrator account for login at the Welcome screen.

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\SpecialAccounts\UserList]
"Administrator"=dword:00000001

That's it!

 

The ctrl+alt+del+del is what i meant by force. You can ONLY do that in pro though, won't work with home.

 

I see. I never used Home Edition, so wouldn't know that. I insist that you try
the registry tweak to see if it works in Home Edition or not.