Link to home
Start Free TrialLog in
Avatar of chadfran
chadfran

asked on

Windows 7

Can some one explain the difference between the administrator account and being an administrator in Windows 7? When would you use/run something as an administrator?
Avatar of John
John
Flag of Canada image

The adminstrator account is disabled in Windows 7 (and should be left disabled for security reasons). The *frist* person who starts a Windows 7 installation is a member of the adminstrators group and is the computer administatrator.

On top of that, UAC (User Account Control) is added security and should be retained. You can use the lowest level, but it will crop up as the first user (administrator) installs software.

It all works very well once you get used to it. ... Thinkpads_User
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
Avatar of LeeTutor
LeeTutor
Flag of United States of America image

Link to home
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Start Free Trial
Avatar of chadfran
chadfran

ASKER

K that kind of makes sense, but what does it mean by saying...If the currently logged on user is a member of the Administrators group, the program is given administrator access to the system, but still runs in the context of the currently logged on user.

However, if the currently logged on user is not a member of the Administrators group, the program will run in the context of the administrator account that was used to authenticate with the UAC dialog.

I made myself apart of the admin group. So from what I understand all programs will run as a standard user unless I right click and say run as an administrator even though I'm apart of the admin group. But I've installed a lot of programs without running as an admin and they work/run fine? So my question is unless I run into a program that needs run as admin I guess I shouldn't use it; correct?
and what is the point of the admin group now...
SOLUTION
Link to home
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Start Free Trial
>>> and what is the point of the admin group now...

In addition to running most any program, the administrator can see the entire file system (UAC will still pop up). But regular users cannot see the entire file system.

Are you coming from XP? Windows 7 is vastly different.  ... Thinkpads_User
One of the things that works better in Windows 7 than in XP, is that an adminstrator can normally install a program simply by running as adminstrator. That did not always work in XP and does work better in Windows 7.

... Thinkpads_User
Can you tell ;) We are moving to Win7/ Server8 and I'm going to have  to become an expert fast. So far I haven't found too much different except the where the #ell is this or that application. You cleared up for me the admin piece. I was thinking that It was an admin user and the run as admin was a "super" admin user.
>>> I was thinking that It was an admin user and the run as admin was a "super" admin user.
Not really. The "administrator" account is disabled for security reasons as noted above. The "first" user is the administrator - not "super" admin. Super admin is not a concept in Windows 7 that I know of.

... Thinkpads_User
Thank you and good luck with Windows 7. It is a nice system to use. ... Thinkpads_User
I know now, but that is what I was thinking before I asked the question. Similar to Unix world. Thanks for clearing things up.