Re: Viewing and password protecting the default Windows XP Adminis

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Malke,

Thank you for this information. I will check out Pegasus and your
suggestions. I hope they will work. I have used MMC before, so this sounds
great.

I truly appreciate your suggestions. I had not covered them all.

So far, I have assigned a password to the machine at the BIOS level, just to
start the boot sequence. After that, another password is necessary to boot
from any of the boot devices which do not include network devices which I
have disabled.

Also the machine had a finger print reader... So... But, I think it boots
from the CD first, so I will change that. Many thanks.

One last thing. Regarding your comment. Anyone can access my machine that
has, like you say, 1) physical access; 2) time; 3) skill; 4) tools. I would
add a fifth. That would be 5) malicious intent or the will to do me harm.

Frankly, I think it is 5). I have been suffering from this kind of problem
since roughly 2002.

Anyway, thank you for the information.

Jean-Pierre



"Malke" wrote:

dareys wrote:

Greetings,

I am working on a Windows XP Professional SP2 box. In the past, I
discovered that under XP, if you configure a secondary account with
administrator privileges and password protect it, you will stop seeing the
default administrator account.

Unfortanetely, it is still there, without a password, and anyone knowing
the keystrokes to boot in safe mode can log in an hack the machine. Hence,
I am trying to find and password protect the default administrator to
protect the box.

I hope it is not too late. Any advice will be welcome. The only additional
note I have is that last time I saw this problem was witht MS Windows XP
SP2 Home edition.
This is windows XP SP2 Professional edition.

You can assign a password to the built-in Administrator account easily.

To change the built-in Administrator account in XP Pro from your other
administrative account:

1. Click Start, and then click Run.
2. In the Open box, type "mmc" (without the quotation marks), and then click
OK to start MMC.
3. Start the Local Users and Groups snap-in.
4. Under Console Root, expand "Local Users and Groups", and then click
Users.
5. In the right pane, right-click Administrator, and then click Set
Password.
6. Click Proceed in the message box that appears.
7. Type and confirm the new password in the appropriate boxes, and then click
OK.

However, you should be aware that any computer running any operating system
can be accessed by someone with 1) physical access; 2) time; 3) skill; 4)
tools. So if I'm sitting at your box anyway, it's mine even if you assign a
password to the built-in Administrator. Here are a few things you can do to
make it harder:

1. Set a password in the BIOS that must be entered before booting the
operating system. Also set the Supervisor password in the BIOS so BIOS Setup
can't be entered without it.

2. From the BIOS, change the boot order to hard drive first.

Malke
--
MS-MVP
Elephant Boy Computers - Don't Panic!
http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/#FAQ


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