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  1. #11

    Default Re: OT: Keep Windows 10 Admin account separate?

    Quote Originally Posted by Dave Labrecque View Post
    It's interesting, though that no one's commiserating with me on this. Again, I have to wonder if I'm doing something "wrong" that's making it more of a pain than it needs to be. Or if I'm overlooking some tweak that will assuage my irritation.

    One more thought: with anti-virus and anti-malware, fire wall, etc., why is this even a concern?
    I'm not as OS-knowledgeable as either of these guys. But, in this situation, I have to agree with Phillip: if your computer is connected to the Internet - you should not interact with it while logged in as admin. If you plug-in a foreign storage device, it should not be as admin. Because - it leaves you no fall back position. Most malware and viruses are found as a result of having already infected a machine. Zero-day infections are unlikely to be noticed by your antivirus. If your machine catches a zero day while in admin - you may lose everything. You may infect your client's machines with files you send them. You may infect other's thumb drives you temporarily plug into your machine.

    You also may not end up being the person that happens to. It's one of those things that isn't an issue - until it is. And by then it's too late.

    All that said, I'm surprised that there are so many things you need to do as admin anyway - and curious. What is it about SAW that admin advantages?

  2. #12

    Default Re: OT: Keep Windows 10 Admin account separate?

    Quote Originally Posted by cgrafx View Post
    With a utility like Process Lasoo, you don't have the run SAWStudio directly as admin and it will elevate the privileges automatically so you don't see it.
    Interesting. I tried some elevated privileges stuff in the past, but it never worked right. Maybe I hadn't found the right tool? IIRC, I was trying to use it to avoid UAC prompts (not even admin stuff), so it might've been a different thing.

    Macrium Reflect gets setup and configured from your admin account. If its set to run scheduled backups those should run even when your not logged in.
    Yes, lately I've been running my nightly image manually, so it wouldn't interrupt me and/or turn off the computer when it was finished while I was still working. Sometimes I'd miss the shutdown warning. Can't look away for too long! Anyway, I have to open the program to run the backup each night, so...

    Search works fine without admin privileges (unless you trying to find something system level, but that should be done when your logged into the admin account)
    Hmmm. I don't remember why I felt I needed to add the "run as admin" thing on that one. Maybe it wasn't showing me the user/admin folder content? Can't recall.

    What are you doing that requires so many restarts of SAW or changes to the device manager? Generally you'd configure the system and then for the most part leave it alone until you need to do updates.
    Now that things are settling down a bit, it's just several projects (SAW sessions) a day that I'm getting into and out of as I work on lots of different (non-audio) things mixed with my audio production work. I tend not to leave it open. Maybe I just should? But for a few weeks after getting the new system going, there were wrinkles I had to iron out: lots of trial and error to get the SAW EXE into a stable compatibility mode (I sure don't remember that being such a difficult thing in the past) so that it wouldn't crash during buildmixes. THEN I had issues setting up the Wusik X42 bridger program that necessitated lots of SAW starts/stops. (never did get that working right; went to Jbridge) THEN there was chasing down the insidious, inconsistent trouble that an unidentified VST was causing (crashes). That turned out to be both the old and the newer Youlean loudness meter VSTs. Long story still not that short: getting SAW and all its VSTs configured and playing nice in SAW had me typing in my silly account password way too often. For a few weeks. But it still feels like a PITA, even when it's "only" several times each day.

    As for why this matters even with firewalls and anti-malware...

    simple example... if your running as adminstrator, all applications now have administrator privileges. So you navigate to compromised website. Your web browser without you doing anything downloads a rouge payload and now has the ability to install itself with admin privileges without you taking any action. It all happens in the background with no notices or warnings.

    This can also happen with email. You click what appears to be a legitimate link inside your email and it downloads the malware payload. Since your running as admin, the payload is also running as admin.

    These are not hypothetical scenarios, this is the current state of the internet.

    Firewalls and Antimalware help, but they are not perfect and are under constant attack and always playing catchup. You don't want to needlessly make it easier to have your system compromised.
    So it's newer viruses/malware that haven't been accounted for yet by, in my case, Windows Defender that I should worry about? I guess I hadn't considered that. Which is dumb, because I know it's an on-going "arms race."
    Last edited by Dave Labrecque; 02-26-2021 at 09:31 PM.
    Dave "it aint the heat, it's the humidity" Labrecque
    Becket, Massachusetts

  3. #13

    Default Re: OT: Keep Windows 10 Admin account separate?

    Quote Originally Posted by John Ludlow View Post
    What is it about SAW that admin advantages?
    From the help file:

    This helps to elevate the program priority to the administrator level which allows it to reach the highest priority levels when using the RealTime and High Priority options within the program.
    Dave "it aint the heat, it's the humidity" Labrecque
    Becket, Massachusetts

  4. #14
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    Default Re: OT: Keep Windows 10 Admin account separate?

    Quote Originally Posted by Dave Labrecque View Post
    From the help file:

    This helps to elevate the program priority to the administrator level which allows it to reach the highest priority levels when using the RealTime and High Priority options within the program.
    As suggested its better to do this with a utility like process lasso. This will not only allow you to get the program running at the right priority level, but you can also set CPU affinity at the same time, all without running the entire user account as admin.

    Or alternatively keep two or three accounts on the machine. Run SAW in an admin account but run your otherwise general office/utility/email stuff as a regular user.

    Or better yet, Get a separate system for doing office stuff and think of your studio machine as a dedicated box that only does studio stuff and don't run other applications on it.
    Last edited by cgrafx; 02-27-2021 at 12:34 AM.
    ---------------------------------------
    Philip G.

  5. #15

    Default Re: OT: Keep Windows 10 Admin account separate?

    Quote Originally Posted by cgrafx View Post
    As suggested its better to do this with a utility like process lasso. This will not only allow you to get the program running at the right priority level, but you can also set CPU affinity at the same time, all without running the entire user account as admin.

    Or alternatively keep two or three accounts on the machine. Run SAW in an admin account but run your otherwise general office/utility/email stuff as a regular user.

    Or better yet, Get a separate system for doing office stuff and think of your studio machine as a dedicated box that only does studio stuff and don't run other applications on it.
    Separate system. One of these days...

    I thought about the separate account approach, but there I go entering credentials, again.

    Speaking of which: does anyone know of a way to force the admin prompts to always ask for a PIN rather than the admin password half the time? As it happens now, it seems to randomly alternate between the two. Entering my PIN each time would be much more bearable.
    Dave "it aint the heat, it's the humidity" Labrecque
    Becket, Massachusetts

  6. #16
    Join Date
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    Default Re: OT: Keep Windows 10 Admin account separate?

    Dave,
    Speaking of which: does anyone know of a way to force the admin prompts to always ask for a PIN rather than the admin password half the time? As it happens now, it seems to randomly alternate between the two. Entering my PIN each time would be much more bearable.
    ...this is ODD ...maybe a remote sometime?

  7. #17

    Default Re: OT: Keep Windows 10 Admin account separate?

    Quote Originally Posted by mr_es335 View Post
    Dave,
    ...this is ODD ...maybe a remote sometime?
    Always up for free tech support.
    Dave "it aint the heat, it's the humidity" Labrecque
    Becket, Massachusetts

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