| Art Alexion on 18 May 2005 20:02:56 -0000 |
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LeRoy Cressy wrote: > Stephen Gran wrote: > > > > >Does anything really need to be said here? They have provided an OS > >where the user generally runs as root. They didn't expect problems with > >that? > > > Windows actually warns against setting up a restricted user stating that > some program will fail to run. > > There is very little concept of user configuration on Windows machines. > If a user changes the configuration of a program, the configuration has > been changed for everyone by default. For the most part windows does > not support by default a home directory. The basic windows setup puts > all user documents in c:\"my documents" directory. If you want to add a > user on a Windows system, there is some work involved to make the user > have a home directory. LeRoy, This isn't really entirely true anymore and it hasn't been since win98se. We have always had user accounts on the family windows box and windows creates user "profiles" directories under the "windows" or "winnt" directory. The "profiles" directory includes the "Application Data" directory which stores program settings, and the "Desktop" and "Document" directories. So, "c:\winnt\profiles\arthur" would be similar to my home "/home/arthur" directory on Linux. The problem is that windows lacks a real permissions system, and not every application developer recognizes the profiles directories, so sometimes settings are private and sometimes not. To complicate matters, on win2k, there are three layers of privilege: Administrator (root), a regular user (who can do some, but not all administrative things which can have system-wide effect, like install some applications), and a restricted user (who can't make system changes). Problem is, once you are one of these users, you always have their permissions, so if I have administrative privileges, I always have them, even when I just log in to type a letter or check email or browse the web. (I can create multiple users for myself, but that is like logging on as root as opposed to su-ing to root or sudo. It is cumbersome.) Now say I have administrative privileges, and I install a couple of programs. One may appear on all users desktops and menus while the other may only appear on my menus. And there is no way to control this. It seems to depend on the sophistication and whim of the application developer and the third-party installer the developer utilizes. I don't need to describe how this all works in Linux... -- _______________________________________ Art Alexion Arthur S. Alexion LLC arthur [at] alexion [dot] com aim: aalexion sms: 2679725536 [at] messaging [dot] sprintpcs [dot] com PGP fingerprint: 52A4 B10C AA73 096F A661 92D2 3B65 8EAC ACC5 BA7A The attachment -- signature.asc -- is my electronic signature; no need for alarm. Info @ http://mysite.verizon.net/art.alexion/encryption/signature.asc.what.html Key for signed PDFs available at http://mysite.verizon.net/art.alexion/encryption/ArthurSAlexion.p7c The validation string is TTJY-ZILJ-BJJG. ________________________________________ Attachment:
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