New
#1
Standard user vs. Administrator in Windows 7
So we are a company stuck a few years in the past. We give all of our approximate 1,200 users (currently on XP Pro SP 2) admin rights because we have about 5 different computer models at any given time and have 5 images to maintain. With all of the software we have on our network and our limited IS staff (on the support side aside from server guys/network guys/etc, we have 3 service desk guys and 2 desktop support guys in our corporate office, and we have about 10 remote sites and only 5 of them have IS support, mostly with one person or one part-time person at each site), we just can't seem to find that magic bullet for just suddenly taking everyone's admin rights away or just suddenly stop shipping computers with admin rights. With Windows 7, I thought I had seen the light with UAC - ship users their computers with limited user accounts, and remote in to input administrator credentials to install all of their software for them. However, after lowering my UAC level to "Never notify," suddenly I can install Java, Roxio, etc...
So today I attended a 3 hour workshop on Windows 7 and the instructor told me that if you do not use Group Policy to disable the UAC "slider," then user's can install software and do anything else that they want to. That just doesn't sound right to me.
If that's not right, why am I able to install software on my PC as a regular user without inputting admin info?