I’ve always said that it was unsafe to run as administrator in Windows. I was always sure that this was good advise but I did not know how much this would help. At last months RSA Conference (a cryptography and information security-related conference) a paper was introduced that shows that 85% of all critical Microsoft vulnerabilities can would be alleviated by the user not running Windows as administrator.

Instructions to turn off admin privileges below the video.

Here is Steve Gibson of GRC and Security Now to tell you about it.

How to run as a Standard User

In Windows 95, 98, and ME running with out administrator privileges  was impossible. There was little if no security built-in those operating systems. With XP the capability was there but it was very difficult to configure so no one bothered. With Vista and later versions of Windows it has become quite easy is to do:

1. Go to the “User Accounts” control panel and create a new user. (Make the user a “Local User” if you are using Windows 8.1 or Windows 10.)  Make sure the new user is an administrator,
2. Login out and login to the new user account,
3. Go to the “User aAccounts” control panel again, find your user account and change it to a “Standard User”.

Next time you login to your user account you will be not be an Administrator and you will be asked for a password to install software or make any system wide changes.