i want to make myself a non admin for security reasons but the option is greyed out in control panel does anyone know why this may be?
No - you are not THE Administrator. There are several ways to activate the Administrator account - read up on it and you'll learn some valuable info - it's all here on these forums.
i am not sure i understand this. in linux there are user accounts and a root account that allows access to the entire system. what i want is something similar on windows. i don't want anything making changes to my system without my permission. does anyone know of a way to do this without creating a second account and making my account a standard account?
you already know what you need to do. Create a second account and place it in the user group, or enable the administrator account and remove admin rights from your existing account. FYI, enable the administrator like this Net user administrator /active:yes Then you should be able to login with a blank password.
ok i changed my user name to admin and created a new standard user with my old username. will logging in to this user make me more safe?
Safe from what? Are you in the constant state of paranoia? Do you have administrator account disabled? Do you have real strong password on administrator equivalent account? Do you have firewall eanbled? Do you have good AV running? To be real safe, never plug network cable into your PC, this way you have no internet access and that makes it nice & comfy. Also under no circumstances do not stick any USB into your machine, that also keeps you safe... sebus
lol guess i've just been hanging on ubuntuforums too much making me paranoid to use windows because there are lots of windows bashers on there
Mama mia ragazzo! Why so much fear, W7 is not a monster that will eat you, that is Ubuntu's deceiving propaganda. Don't allow them to brainwashing you!!!
It's actually a very good idea to run your computer with limited right's just gets to be a pain in the ass if you add and remove programs all the time will also stop other people that you know from putting crap on your computer. Most secrity sites recomend running your computer this way no matter what security software you are useing
Good in theory, but in prctise if it yet not there Example: Install a program (standard user can not, so you are asked for administrator user credentials) Then the program (usually badly designed) installs all the shortcuts to this administrator user space. It might even install some crucial data into that user space. You of course as a standard user can not access this space so the log off is required to just move the shortcuts etc Total nightmare! & all for a simple action of an installation sebus
Just stick with the standard Administrator account. For most users this is more than sufficient. You will have control of your system without making things tricky and besides if you want to delve deeper into windows 7 then its easy enough to take ownership of various files and folders. As Sebus stated good AV and Firewall will see you right. Dont let the ubuntu crowd fool you, i have a brother who is a linux disciple and he does nothing but criticise windows, yet even he is now dual booting win7 and ubuntu.