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Running as a Power User

This past weekend I re-imaged my Tablet PC and vowed to run strictly as a power user. Thus far I have not had too many problems, but thought I would share the short list of issues I have encountered:

  • Microsoft's AntiSpyware Beta does not appear to perform to well as a power user. It would not let me take the Imagine Cup IT quiz last night and then it also randomly displays ghost windows in the upper right hand corner of the screen. It also tends to leave ghost icons in the taskbar, earlier this morning there were 4 at one point in time.
  • AOL Instant Messenger will not install unless you are an administrator. (I think this is because of the spyware they now package with their installation. Yes you can opt not to install it.) AIM also would not run this morning as a power user. When I attempt to run it, a process starts but nothing ever comes of the process. I am not sure what is up with this, but will look into it.
  • I could not add a local printer earlier this morning. It turns out you need the, load and unload device drivers, rights to add a local printer. This was an easy fix.
  • Adobe Acrobat also requires you to be an administrator. They actually prompt you with the Run As screen which is pretty cool, but I wish you didn't have to be an admin to install it.

Other then these minor things running as a power user has been going well. I will keep everyone informed of other issues I run into.

--Eric (Grand Valley State University)

Published Monday, January 17, 2005 8:18 AM by kevinbri
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Comments

# re: Running as a Power User

Monday, January 17, 2005 8:40 AM by Brant Gurganus
At least some of the products are aware of different account privelidges so that they can prompt you to obtain those privelidges. Several applications will either die or act weird if they just assumed administrative privelidges. Your printer issue is interesting because you can add a SMB/CIFS printer without extra privelidges, even as a limited user and it still causes driver installation in some cases.

# re: Running as a Power User

Monday, January 17, 2005 8:59 AM by David Heise
I've been doing the same think on my desktop as a dev for a couple of weeks now. The biggest save for me is that I found a couple of great scripts for having an open ADMIN command console while you work as a normal user. I found them in the Book: "The .NET Developer's Guid to Windows Security" by Keith Brown (ISBN: 0321228359) part 9: How to Develop Code as a NonAdmin (can be found here: http://pluralsight.com/wiki/default.aspx/Keith.GuideBook.HowToDevelopCodeAsANonAdmin

So whenever I needed to do something as admin I simply start it from my admin command line. This has worked for just about everything.

David (Brigham Young University)

# re: Running as a Power User

Monday, January 17, 2005 9:02 AM by Howard Hoy
I have been running on my windows box for many years as a non-admin. It keeps things clean. I wrote a cool utility called Authenti-Key for NT back when 95 was released and updated it for each new OS. I can enter new credentials and create a secure command prompt. From there I can run any admin function, install or application I need under that user. I also use it for scripting enterprise installs where I need to elevate the application install as admin on non-admin users workstation. Here is a screenshot of it in action on my site www.doyousnap.com. http://www.doyousnap.com/portal/albums/7/61.aspx
It can be downloaded on my site www.digitalfootprint.net

# re: Running as a Power User

Monday, January 17, 2005 9:03 AM by Eric Maino
David

That's great to hear. I love Keith's books, they have come in use many times.

The only other thing I can't run as a power user is the Google Desktop Search :-(.

# re: Running as a Power User

Monday, January 17, 2005 9:37 AM by Ramon 'Exyll' Smits
You can run AOL Instant Messenger as normal user. just change the rights an the users registry key hive for AOL Instant Messenger.

To know which key to change... visit sysinternals and launch regmon and you will know within a second.

Seriously.. having quality tools like file and regmon makes configuring priviliges more easy.

# re: Running as a Power User

Monday, January 17, 2005 11:31 AM by Robert Hurlbut
One thing to watch out for: a Power User is really a crippled Administrator account. In fact, you still have many of the same capabilities as an Administrator (Keith points this out in the same book above).

If you can, go all the way and run as a normal user instead and use the the methods above to keep an admin shell open or other ways. You can also check out Aaron Margosis' blog that highlights this lifestyle as well as many other great tools: http://weblogs.asp.net/aaron_margosis.

# re: Running as a Power User

Friday, February 04, 2005 4:07 PM by Kieran Jacobsen
I have found that even for development i can actually run as a "user". I install everything using an Admin account, and then use a simple user account. There is no reason why most people need "power user". If you set evertying up with the admin.
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