Administrator accounts are used by users to carry out tasks that require special permissions, such as installing software or renaming a computer. These Administrator accounts should be regularly audited — this should include a password change, and confirmation of who has access to these accounts. On a Windows network, there are several Security Groups that have high levels of access to various parts of the network.
These groups should be audited regularly to ensure that there are no normal users as members, only Administrators. The default groups are:. There may be other groups with high levels of access that have been manually created. These should be documented and added to the auditing process. There is another type of user account that has special access to parts of your network — the Service Account.
Service Accounts are user accounts that are used by software normally on a server to carry out automated tasks such as running backups, or managing your anti-virus administration. These services should never be set up to use Administrator account credentials — there should be at least one dedicated Service Account on your network.
Windows has a default guest account called Guest. These guest accounts are the first port of call for criminal hackers and should be immediately and permanently disabled. If a guest account is required, it should not have an obvious name such as Guest. These are the normal user accounts that are used by staff in their day-to-day work to log onto a computer and do their normal work. Any more feedback? The more you tell us the more we can help. Can you help us improve? Resolved my issue. Clear instructions.
Easy to follow. No jargon. Pictures helped. Didn't match my screen. Incorrect instructions. One of the biggest benefits to a domain user account is the ease of password resets. Knowledge of the current password is not required, as Active Directory handles all of the heavy lifting. This one feature turns what could potentially be an ultra-panicky situation into a normal Tuesday morning. Over the past several years, Microsoft has been heavily pushing the concept of a Microsoft account instead of a local user account or even a domain user account — to the point where you have to jump through hoops to set up a new Windows 10 system without being forced to use a Microsoft account.
So just what is a Microsoft account anyway? Essentially, this is a single sign-on SSO account that is managed by Microsoft for any devices and authorized websites you may be accessing.
Microsoft accounts also support two-factor authentication via multiple different methods. This can give you a significant security boost if you only have a handful of systems that you work with. Password recovery on a Microsoft account is simultaneously easier and significantly harder than local or domain users. Because this is essentially a web-based account, web-based password recovery methods are available, including alternate email addresses and phone numbers.
Unfortunately, this also means that there are no other people you will be able to easily talk to for assistance in this regard. Choosing the type of user account you need is very much based around how you use the system or systems you need on a daily basis. However, as the world continues to move more and more operations to web-based services and cloud providers, we may have to revisit this in the future.
This is especially true if Microsoft starts moving away from on-premises Active Directory implementations. You can also sign up for a new account anytime, choosing a new address at Outlook. Signing in to your Windows 10 or Windows 11 PC with a Microsoft account offers several distinct benefits:.
Note that Windows telemetry data is tied to your device and isn't associated with a Microsoft account. And, of course, you can create a Microsoft account and use it exclusively for signing in to Windows while keeping your email, cloud storage, and other services elsewhere. But if you do use a Microsoft account for services such as Office and OneDrive, it makes sense to sign in to Windows using the same account. A local account is about as old school as Windows gets.
You don't need a network connection or an email address; instead, you create a username up to 20 characters and a password, both of which are stored on the PC where you create them and grant access only to that device. There's no particular security or privacy advantage to signing in with a local account indeed the lack of device encryption is a negative, in my book ; but if that's your preference, you can do so when you first set up Windows 10 any edition or Windows 11 Pro on a new PC.
Windows 11 Home requires you to sign in with a Microsoft account during initial setup. With a Microsoft account, you have multiple options to recover if you forget your password. With local accounts, you've historically had no such option if you forget your password. On Windows 10, setting up a local account on Windows 10 requires that you fill in answers to three security questions, to help you recover in the event you forget your password.
You can't bypass those questions, nor can you choose alternatives other than the six predefined questions. If you're worried that a thief with a search engine can guess those answers, do as I do and For example, you can answer the three security questions with a three-word passphrase of your own, entered one word at a time.
Or, if you'd prefer to bypass the whole feature, just mash the keyboard to create random "answers" that no one including you could possibly guess. If you choose either option, don't blame me if you forget your password. Even if you prefer a local account, consider signing in first with a Microsoft account.
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