One thing which we could change to help prevent infestations of virus and other malware is to use a limited account for our everyday work and leave the administrator account for use only when we need full administration privileges. If you happen to receive a virus when working in a user with full administration privileges, the virus has all of those permissions which you enjoy. Working in a limited user environment, whilst not a watertight technique, limits you and anything else which purports to be you from obtaining full control of the pc. A limited account provides the following capabilities: With a limited account, you can: Change or remove your password Change your picture, theme, and other desktop settings View files you created View files in the Shared Documents folder Users with limited accounts cannot always install programs. Depending on the program, a user might need administrator privileges to install it. Also, programs designed prior to Windows XP or Windows 2000 might not work properly with limited accounts. For best results, choose programs bearing the Designed for Windows XP logo, or, to run older programs, choose the "computer administrator" account type. There must always be one administrator account on a pc and you can always switch to that when you need to undertake a task which you can't do in the limited account. I know of very few personal machines whose owners habitually use a limited account for their everyday use. Regards, Phil Medway E-mail: philmedway@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx Tel: 01869 347639 Mobile: 07980 519990 Skype: philmedway ----- Original Message ----- From: "George Bell" <george@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> To: <jaws-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> Sent: Thursday, July 31, 2008 12:22 AM Subject: [jaws-uk] Re: Thanks and more problems Hi Barbara, As much for others' advice as yours, Graham raises a very good point which we should all be aware of. The following is a 110% true tale. A fully sighted friend of mine acquired a laptop from a so called PC expert work-mate. (Goodness knows where the mate got it from!) He wasn't exactly PC illiterate having used his employer's systems whilst on night time security to browse the internet. Anyway, after a short period, things started to go wrong, so I got hold of it, only to discover that it had a cracked copy of Windows XP on it. Lesson number one. Total reformat, and on went a completely legal copy of Windows XP. I got him connected to Virgin's cable system and off he went, happy as a pig in whatnot. Three weeks later he was back with a system which was positively poluted with all sort of spyware, viruses, malware and goodness knows what. In the end I gave up and reformatted. But before I gave him the system back, he admitted that some lady friends had been browsing one night after a few glasses of the local plonk. Nuff said. Lesson number two learned. I basically told him that if he was EVER to let ANYONE use his laptop without his supervising exactly what they were looking at, I bluntly advised him that I would place said laptop somewhere the sun doesn't shine. It's been six months now, and much to my surprise, he's even got himself onto e-mail. And absolutely NOBODY is allowed to touch that system - except me. It has AVG and Microsoft Defender on it, and (fingers crossed) is as clean as a whistle. George. ________________________________ From: jaws-uk-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:jaws-uk-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Graham Page Sent: 30 July 2008 23:33 To: jaws-uk@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [jaws-uk] Re: Thanks and more problems 's systems Hi Barbara. If there is someone who can assist you, I would be tempted to back up all important work and do a complete reformat, particularly if an attempt at a system restore does not solve the problem. This does sound drastic I know but it will probably result in a system which runs faster anyway and you could end up spending quite a lot of time resolving the problems. by the way, are there other members of the household that use the PC or is there only you? These days, providing a system is up to date, much of the spyware is transmitted by people going to dodgy websites which run unwanted programs on the PC in various ways. This can happen easily. One way this can happen is if you accidentally misspell a website. Anyway, good luck with system restore or even total reformatting. Regards Graham Graham Page Home Phone: 0207 265 9493 Mobile: 07753 607980 Fax: 0870 706 2773 Email: gpage@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx MSN: gabriel_mcbird@xxxxxxxxxxx Skype: gabriel_mcbird ** To leave the list, click on the immediately-following link:- ** [mailto:jaws-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=unsubscribe] ** If this link doesn't work then send a message to: ** jaws-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx ** and in the Subject line type ** unsubscribe ** For other list commands such as vacation mode, click on the ** immediately-following link:- ** [mailto:jaws-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=faq] ** or send a message, to ** jaws-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the Subject:- faq ** To leave the list, click on the immediately-following link:- ** [mailto:jaws-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=unsubscribe] ** If this link doesn't work then send a message to: ** jaws-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx ** and in the Subject line type ** unsubscribe ** For other list commands such as vacation mode, click on the ** immediately-following link:- ** [mailto:jaws-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx?subject=faq] ** or send a message, to ** jaws-uk-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the Subject:- faq