User Accounts in Vista

Why does Windows Vista have User Accounts? It's not so that everyone has their own login and can customize settings to their own taste, although that is a nice side-benefit. The main reason is security. By having one administrator account and then separate user accounts for other people, you can control who has access to make changes of consequence to the system, like installing new programs. System security is a task that has assumed gigantic proportions, thanks to the variety and viciousness of online and offline threats. Ensuring that a system does not get compromised has become a cause of great concern for both enterprise and individuals and so, strengthening the security of desktops and laptops has been part of the design brief of Vista - and user accounts are an integral part of Vista's security mechanisms.

The advantages of creating separate user accounts are numerous:

1. Different people get to customize the way their desktop and Windows look.
2. They can also have their own version of Favorites and recently visited websites in Internet Explorer.
3. They get to keep their folders private and can choose to share only those files that they wish to share.
4. Most important of all, the Administrator gets to protect the settings of the computer and prevent other users from doing things that will damage the computer.

User Account Control (UAC)

UAC, which might seem like an annoyance, is actually one of the most important security features of Windows Vista. It is a powerful component of Windows Security System (WSC) that lets you exert better control over the continued well-being of your system.

The UAC is a dialog box that continually pops up and asks you for your permission (or password, depending on your user account settings) whenever you try to adjust a setting or install a program. The idea is that viruses cannot make changes to your system without you getting to know about it.

The UAC is modeled on similar features found in Mac OS X and UNIX. It ensures that your system is safer, even though you may feel irritation at having to give permission every time.

If you are confronted with one of these dialog boxes and you are not actually trying to make any changes to the security settings, click Cancel instead of Continue.