Windows 8 offers four basic
types of user accounts: the built-in Administrator account, user
accounts with administrative privileges, standard accounts, and a Guest
account. They vary in how much privilege they grant to the person using
the account.
With Windows 8, you also have the choice of
setting up the user accounts as local or Microsoft accounts. You can
read about these types of accounts in the following sections.
Microsoft accounts
With Microsoft accounts, you have the
greatest flexibility for taking advantage of many of the newest Windows
8 features. To set up a Microsoft account, you must use a valid e-mail
address. You can use an existing account, such as one you use at your
office or a third-party account such as Yahoo! Mail or similar. If you
do not have one, you can set up an e-mail account during the Windows 8
user account setup.
A Microsoft account provides the following features:
- Allows you to log in to a computer on which you have not previously
set up a user account. (Conversely, with local accounts, you must set
up a local account on each computer on which you want to log in.)
- Provides access to Microsoft Xbox Live and Windows Phone accounts.
- Enables you to download apps from the Windows Store.
- Syncs settings across multiple computers. For example, if you work
on two or more computers, logging in with the same Microsoft account on
each one will enable you to keep your favorites, history, sign-in info,
and languages synced between the two computers.
- Enables you to access your files and photos from multiple computers.
Local accounts
Local accounts are used when you do not
need to keep computers synced. When you use local accounts, you set up
accounts for each user that will be using a computer. If you need to
set up one account that can be used on multiple Windows 8 computers,
you must set up Microsoft accounts.
Local accounts are also limiting in that you
cannot use them to access the Windows Store to download apps. Again, to
access Windows Store apps, you must set up and use a Microsoft account.
The built-in administrator account
A single user account named
Administrator is built into Windows 8. This is not the same as an
administrative account you create yourself or see on the login screen.
This account is hidden from normal view. It doesn’t show up on the
usual login screen.
The built-in Administrator account has unlimited
computer privileges. So while you’re logged in to that account, you can
do anything and everything you want with the computer. Any programs you
run while you are in that account can also do anything they want. That
makes the account risky from a security standpoint, and very unwise to
use unless absolutely necessary.
In high-security settings, a new computer is
usually configured by a certified network or security administrator who
logs in to the Administrator account to set up the computer for other
users. There, the administrator configures accounts on the principle of least privilege, where each account is given only as much privilege as necessary to perform a specific job.
When the administrator is finished, he or she
typically renames the built-in Administrator account and
password-protects it to keep everyone else out. The account is always
hidden from view, except from other administrators who know how to find
it. All this is standard operating procedure in secure computing
environments, although hardly the norm in home computing.
In Windows 8, you really don’t need to find, log
in to, and use the built-in Administrator account unless you’re an
advanced user with a specific need, in which case you can get to it
through Safe Mode. As a regular home user, you can do everything you
need to do from a regular user account that has administrative
privileges.
Administrative user accounts
Most of the time when you hear
reference to an Administrator account in Windows 8, that reference is
to a regular user account that has administrative privileges. This is
an account that has virtually all the power and privilege of the
built-in Administrator account. But it also has a lot of security built
in to help thwart security threats that might otherwise abuse that
account’s privileges and do harm to your computer.
Ideally, you want to create one user account with
administrative privileges on your computer. If you intend to implement
parental controls, you’ll need to password-protect that account to keep
children from disabling or changing parental controls.
Standard accounts
A standard user account is the kind of
account everyone should use for day-to-day computer use. It has enough
privilege to do day-to-day tasks such as run programs, work with
documents, use e-mail, and browse the web. It doesn’t have enough
privilege to make changes to the system that would affect other
people’s user accounts. It doesn’t have enough privilege to allow
children to override parental controls. And most important, it doesn’t
have enough privilege to let malware such as viruses and worms make
harmful changes to your system.
If you use a standard account all the time, and
use a built-in administrative account only when absolutely necessary,
you’ll go a long way toward keeping your computer safe from Internet
security threats.
Guest account
The optional Guest account
exists to allow people who don’t regularly use your computer to use it
temporarily. Basically, it lets them check their e-mail, browse the
web, and maybe play some games. It definitely won’t let them make
changes to your user account or anyone else’s. Its limited privileges
also help protect your system from any malicious software they might
pick up while online.
