Is a standard user account necessary for tight security and home user?

Kol12 said:

The maximum level of UAC is the safest, what difference will there be 1 notch down with a standard user account?

Less intrusive/less notifications:
User Account Control (UAC) - Change Settings in Windows 10 - Windows 10 Forums

Kol12 said:

I'm able to view the admins user folder in the standard account. Is that not normal?

You might see the user folder, but you can not access it unless you take permission, as Steve C showed in his post previously.

Kol12 said:

There seems to be some debate as to whether your actually running as a standard user in an admin account with UAC enabled. Any opinions or able to clarify?

Not exactly sure what you mean by this, but, have a look in your User Accounts in Control Panel, and see at what level the users are shown. When you are logged into a user account, that is the level you have.

Kol12 said:

CPUID HWMonitor won't display all of the sensors unless run as an administrator. Are a lot of programs coded to need admin permissions to run correctly?

Some, but not many. In that case, when you go to run that program, right-click and select Run as Administrator. Or, set it up to always run with admin rights.

Kol12 said:

I have noticed that Asus AI suite is not starting up with Windows and I'm guessing it's because the app needs admin rights to open it. Is there anything you can do about apps that you want to start up with Windows that need admin rights to start?
As far as Asus AI suite goes, the associated processes are starting with Windows just not the app or GUI.

See here:
Run as Administrator in Windows 10 - Windows 10 Forums

But, I will say, I have found ASUS AI Suite to be problematic with Windows 10 and had to remove it from my system altogether. I've also had to advise others here on the forum to do the same, to resolve problems they'd had (including BSODs).

Kol12 said:

No I can access the admins user folder from the standard account, but I've noticed at the bottom of the file explorer window that it says State: Shared. Is that not normal? I don't recall setting/changing anything.

Don't think so. A standard user can not access another user's folders/libraries, only the shared folder or public folder. Unless, of course, you took permission using the admin password.

Kol12 said:

What I meant was, some people believe that they're running under a standard user account's level of protection while in an admin account with high UAC settings. I'm still reading about it but it's being widely regarded as false.

I don't believe it's the same thing.

Kol12 said:

The problem with HWMonitor running it as an administrator is that it always opens with lots of extra sensors. Strangely after opening and closing it multiple times it will open with the standard sensors. Maybe it's not a bad thing anyway, it's mainly a whole lot of extra voltages.

That is odd. I don't use it that much, so am not real familiar with it.

Kol12 said:

I've heard of AI Suite being problematic for as long as I've had it. Were the BSODs caused by overclock's set in AI Suite? I've moved my OC purely to the BIOS. The advantage I've heard AI has is Fan Xpert3 apparently offering the most control while being easy to use. I didn't even realize it was controlling my fans until recently! I still not certain it is actually, I'm working on that.

For the threads I am thinking of, I don't believe so. IIRC, just having the software on the system was problematic. For myself and my system, I had no OCing whatsoever, and still had problems with AI Suite giving me BSODs.

I'm confused, I've attached a screenshot to better illustrate:

Kol12 said:

I'm confused, I've attached a screenshot to better illustrate:

Attachment 103052

If Matt is your standard-permission-level user account, and Matt's PC is your admin-permission-level user account, then, while in the Matt account, you should not be able to access the files in the Matt's PC folder without taking ownership of it once.

Kol12 said:

I've changed our laptop account to a standard account as well but it is not being prompted for admin permission by anything.

I think the account might have been setup with a Microsoft account when the Win 10 upgrade took place. Will this have any affects over the permissions?

I don't think so. I setup a standard-permission-level user account for my son on a computer, and used his MS account to do it, and its permissions were correct.

You might try running sfc /scannow, in your admin-level account, from an admin command prompt, to see if permissions can be reset that way. Upon completion, this tool should report no integrity violations found. If it says found and fixed, or unable to fix, reboot the system and run it again, at least 3 times, to see if you can get the no integrity violations found result. Fast Startup should be turned off and the system rebooted before doing this.

If permissions are still a problem after that, there is a user here, @fdegrove, who is well-versed on this subject; perhaps he will be kind enough to provide a method to correct this for you using icacls, or a bat file similar to the one he posted here.

Another option is a program called tweaking.com, which I have never used, but it appears to have the option to correct permissions, and one of our members has used it for years.

At any rate, I would be sure to have an image of the entire system (using Macrium or another good imaging program), before attempting repairs of this nature.

fdegrove said:

Hi,



Thanks for the nice words Simrick.
I'll be more than happy to help if TS should need it.

Cheers,

Thanks very much! :)