Re: Need to understand permissions and ownership

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Malke wrote:
Luis Ortega wrote:

Thanks again.
I tried to do some system restores but it said that it encountered a
problem and did not make any changes, so I am stuck with whatever I have
now.
I don't know if they failed because of something I did by changing
ownerships or permissions or if there is some other reason. Whatever it
is, it won't accept any of my restore points.

I know that I changed ownership on the c drive and also tried to change
ownership of the users folder to my own named account.

I understand about the virtual folders and am not trying to access those.

This is a single user system but it is on a wireless broadband
connection to the internet. I do not need to share files with another
computer but my daughter may try to use the bluetooth feature to connect
to an ipod or something.
I am primarily worried about making the system vulnerable to attacks
from the internet by having changed ownerships or permissions. I am not
concerned about intrusions from any local networks or unauthorized
persons getting into the system. It is just our home computer.

Is there any way to change the c drive back to anything more secure?
Should I try to delete or remove permissions from the authenticated
users from the lists of who has permissions and just leave system,
administrators and users on the lists?
Should I consider reinstalling vista again?

Playing around with permissions on a single-user system the way you did will
do nothing to protect you from "attacks from the internet [sic]". Having
good security software and using "Safe Hex" will. See the links below about
that.

At this point, you probably have irrevocably damaged your operating system.
I would back up your data and do a clean install of Vista (or restore your
computer to factory condition if an OEM machine).

Then consider buying a book such as the one I recommended, purchasing an
external hard drive and an imaging program like Acronis True Image, and
learning about Vista before doing this sort of thing again.

Safe Hex:
http://www.getsafeonline.org/
https://www.mysecurecyberspace.com/
http://www.getnetwise.org/
http://wiki.castlecops.com/Malware_Removal_and_Prevention:_Introduction
http://www.claymania.com/safe-hex.html
http://www.aumha.org/a/parasite.htm - The Parasite Fight
http://msmvps.com/blogs/harrywaldron/archive/2006/02/05/82584.aspx - MVP
Harry Waldron - The Family PC - How to stay safe on the Internet

Malke

Thanks.
I decided to start again and wiped out the hard drive and reinstalled vista.
I noticed that I was unable to use any of the system restore points and this concerned me, so since it's a new laptop it wasn't much work to wipe it all out and reinstall everything.
I always had ghost images on my xp computers that I created after a full clean installs and I planned to do the same with vista. I have lots of external drives to put clone images on.
Do you recommend acronis instead of, say norton ghost?
I am leaving all the ownerships and permissions as they are until I have a ghost image or clone to fool around with and see how it "breaks".
I will learn how this thing works.
I got a Mac Pro earlier this year with Leopard on it and it took me a little while to learn that one, but now I like it a lot. I'm not sure if I'll like vista but since this laptop can't be used with xp I don't really have a choice but to learn it.
One thing- what do you think of tweakUAC? Is it worth using?
.

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