Currently I am working at an office. I am not the sys admin / IT person in charge nor have I had any formal training in this field. I do love tech and know a few things more than your average person. So at best I am the GTG (Go-To-Geek) and unofficial tech-support for family and friends.
Today I sat down and borrowed the office PC, I needed to search for a phone number while my iPhone was doing the OTA update to iOS7 beta 4.
Now I have borrowed this Windows 7 machine a month or so back and it pains me to see a once clean machine flooded with user installed bull crap. The office has recently hired a secretary / encoder and she has been using this machine most of the time.
Useless browser extensions, questionable system cleaners / optimizers, dubious media players / converters and probably some malware may have already been introduced into this office machine. By the way the anti-virus software license has expired too. Another threat vector.
Sure some blame may be put on the user but it is ultimately the sys admin's responsibility. No workstation at any office environment should have Administrator level access. That is simply poor form from any sys admin / IT person. This opens up your system or network to a host of potential problems that you will have to deal with in the long run.
For personal or home systems I recommend you keep yourself as a standard user and activate the administrator account. This will be an extra layer of protection from unwanted installs and system changes. If other people tend to borrow your machine turn on the guest account as well.
Your machine is your responsibility. You are your own sys admin.
Today I sat down and borrowed the office PC, I needed to search for a phone number while my iPhone was doing the OTA update to iOS7 beta 4.
Now I have borrowed this Windows 7 machine a month or so back and it pains me to see a once clean machine flooded with user installed bull crap. The office has recently hired a secretary / encoder and she has been using this machine most of the time.
Useless browser extensions, questionable system cleaners / optimizers, dubious media players / converters and probably some malware may have already been introduced into this office machine. By the way the anti-virus software license has expired too. Another threat vector.
Sure some blame may be put on the user but it is ultimately the sys admin's responsibility. No workstation at any office environment should have Administrator level access. That is simply poor form from any sys admin / IT person. This opens up your system or network to a host of potential problems that you will have to deal with in the long run.
For personal or home systems I recommend you keep yourself as a standard user and activate the administrator account. This will be an extra layer of protection from unwanted installs and system changes. If other people tend to borrow your machine turn on the guest account as well.
Your machine is your responsibility. You are your own sys admin.
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