A couple of years ago, I found out that one of the reasons Windows is inherently less secure than Linux is that the type of Windows used in homes gives any user administrator-level access to everything on the system, making it possible for viruses, malware, etc. to compromise the entire system from one user account. I just wondered if this is still true for Windows and I can still claim this when telling someone why Linux is more secure. At the time I learned about this weakness in Windows, I also heard a claim that Microsoft was taking steps to fix this weakness. I have no idea whether that was true.

You need to go into the Users control panel and change the type of account for whatever user you need to edit. With linux, you don't have this issue.

Cheers,

Josh

Windows has always allowed any user full access to the system because of its historical DOS lineage. DOS was conceived as a single user and single tasking system, and so was Windows. The Internet as we now know it didn't exist at the time, and networking was rarely seen outside office and gaming.

The Windows 9x/me series allowed multiple user accounts They were nothing more than separate desktop spaces so each user could have their own personal folders and wallpaper separate from others. Users still had full access to the system, and nothing kept them from reading/deleting files of other users.

With Windows XP Microsoft did some things to protect system files and further individualize user accounts. XP inherited filesystem access permissions from NT, but didn't try very hard to put them to good use. It was still common to run as "Administrator", and many applications demanded "Administrator" rights.

With Vista Microsoft introduced UAC to give users an opportunity to stop and think before allowing an application access to sensitive facilities. Most users hated UAC so much they either turned it off or just clicked "Allow" without thinking.

Vista is the last Microsoft OS I have used, so I can't comment about anything after that. I expect future editions of Windows will move toward Unix style permissions, because it is known to work and has done for decades before Windows even existed.

I'm not really prepared to debate any of my points above, thus the lack of citation. These are just my observations as a long time Windows user who finally switched to GNU/Linux and has found some contentment. Feel free to rebut any obvious discrepancies, but please do be polite.

It is up to you. You could make a non-administrator account and use it for your main profile even on WinXP.