windows - Local user vs. domain user? What is the right way here?

25
2014-01
  • ebeeb

    I'm a software developer in a company with 6 employees. Everyone has a machine for him-/herself, so none of the machines is shared.

    I'm currently setting up my machine with Windows 8 and was experimenting a bit with domain and local user accounts.

    Correct me please if I'm wrong, but I think the idea behind is, that domain users generally should not be able to modify the configuration of a machine (like installing software), since they are able to login on every single machine in the domain. The local user (usually just one local administrator per machine) is the one who cares about the configuration of the machine.

    But in my case the login into the domain is just for being able to access directories/servers in the domain (I do not really know the details, all I know is, that loggin into the domain user account is necessary). So overall I've got a local admin account and a domain account used on my machine. While working I'm logged in to my domain user account. But it annoys me, that I always need to enter the credentials of my local user account when I'm about to update/install something, which happens quite often as a software developer.

    I fixed this with adding the domain account into the user accounts in my control panel and putting it into the Administrators group.

    The only thing I wanted to know about this: is there something REALLY bad about doing this? Or is there maybe a more common way to be able to act like a local admin, while logged in as a domain user?

    PS: I'm sorry about the tags, but I don't know the proper ones. I'd be glad if some of the superuser experts could fix this :-)

  • Answers
  • Graham Wager

    The way you've accomplished this is perfectly acceptable, and allows that one user to have Administrator privileges over that one PC. I use the same procedure to allow trusted users to toy with their machines, while stopping them messing up anyone elses.

    You can then delete the local accounts to avoid duplication or confusion.


  • Related Question

    windows - Removing old domain user files from local machine
  • tm1rbrt

    How do I delete old domain user files from local machine. Like the ones in:

    C:\Users\Documents and Settings\

    Because it will leave some stuff in the registry as well. Is there a proper way to delete a user and wipe out everything?


  • Related Answers
  • Dave M

    Right click on My Computer. Click Properties. Click the Advanced Tab. Under User Profiles click Settings and then pick the account you want removed. Click Delete.

    That cleans things up pretty well.