So after the StarForce incident, I decided to remove the admin priviledges from my default login account. I made sure I knew the Administrator password and even created a 2nd admin account just in case. A lot of things require admin credentials to work properly in Windows XP, but so far the process has been smooth. I’ve made a shortcut that runs runas /u:Administrator cmd, which will create a command prompt asking me for the Administrator password and then giving me admin credentials on that command prompt.
Programs like Unlocker and Ethereal fail to run properly under my credentials which is expected. Ethereal was a easy fix where I just right clicked the shortcut and clicked Run as… and I can choose to run as an Admin. However, Unlocker still failed to work properly. It seems to require Debug access, which I have yet to test it, but I did learn how that Unlocker can be used through the command prompt:
Command line usage:
Unlocker.exe Object [Option]
Object:
Complete path including drive to a file or folder
Options:
/H or -H or /? or -?: Display command line usage
/S or -S: Unlock object without showing the GUI
/L or -L: Object is a text file containing the list of files to unlock
/LU or -LU: Similar to /L with a unicode list of files to unlock
/O or -O: Outputs Unlocker-Log.txt log file in Unlocker directory
So I just added the path to my environment variables and now I can execute Unlocker in any directory (with admin credentials of course).
Getting to the control panel applets with admin credentials was another obstacle. I did find this link: Run Control Panel Applets as Another User which provided enough information on how to do it, but I’d still like to be able to pop up a control panel window will all the links already having admin priviledges instead of remember everyone. I guess this will help me in the long term if I remember the shortcuts.
If you want remote desktop access, remember to add yourself into Remote Desktop Users.
So what does all get me besides complications? Better Security. Now I don’t have to worry about installing software that will install crap like StarForce onto my computer without me knowing. So far the change has minimal impact on how I do things, but if things start getting bad, I might probably just change back to Administrator.