Limited account?

You've clearly never seen the nightmares ..... or the risks.

 

You've clearly never seen the nightmares ..... or the risks.
This is not to say that there are not better ways or that
some sysadmin types don't go a bit far in the wrong directions.

 

Well, I know they have to safe guard against some things. Virus scan
and Spyware software is a smart move but this locking up everything so
tight...what real good does it do? The process IT goes through to
implement and maintain it may make life easier for them, but
productivity is lost elsewhere.

My previous employer which was only slightly smaller than my current
left everything wide open. Users had total admin rights to their PC. Of
course we had Virus scan and such to help keep them "clean. But now at
my current employer, I see just as many issues. Most revolve around the
fact that IT wants all PCs to be the same. Same OS, same service pack,
same video driver, etc. But we all run different programs and sometimes
a video driver that works with UG, doesn't work with Geomagic. What did
I do at the old place?....download a new driver and find one that
works...What do I do at the new place.....report the issue, wait a day
or so for them to get back with me...wait another day to a week for
them to download it, validate it with the rest of the companies
software, then write the procedure on using it..etc..etc...

 

locking up everything so tight...what real good does it do?

It empowers the IT guy, and makes him feel better about his otherwise
shallow and meaningless life....

 

Things need to be well-documented, maintained & controlled.
LEGAL software is needed too .... none of that "I'll just install this .."
stuff.

Try recovering from a few total hard drive crashes too. What was where
& in what configuration? Where are the user's own files?

I like a gold master disk/system with everything that executes. Just
copy it to new machines & edit what little needs to be unique, like the
machine's name & IP.
Serve the user's home & personal files & settings from a well-backed-up
system.
Use a license server.
NOTE any special drivers, devices, etc.
Keep hardcopies too, with one set at each machine.

 

When it all goes bad who are you going to blame?

 

No reason you can't do that but still let the user customize some. Our
"My Docs" are mapped to a network driver and that works fine. If the
drive crashes, ok, so I lost my customization.....I'll put it back if
it was important.

And there is auditing software to make sure everything on the PC is
legal. Don't keep me from installing freebies though.

 

When it all goes bad.....I fix it myself unless it's a hardware failure
which isn't usually because of the user anyway...unless you spill your
coffee into your brand new CAD workstation laptop like my coworker did.

 

How, exactly, in some environments?
Who was in charge of the backups where?
In charge of that other software on which things depend
of which you were unaware?
Can you even find the disconected connection two miles
down a utility tunnel? How about the tunnel or the keys to the doors?
Why would anyone look there? Or even know of that cable?

There went your disk drives again (hardware failure). Where's ALL the data &
user settings, etc?

Now, you COULD be a single user on a stand-alone machine .... who does
not need to depend on others in any way nor they on you. Then the risk
is all yours, right? If a nasty virus wipes your machine you will replace & redo
all the data for free by midnight, right?

A *good* sysadmin to help you is handy but you have to work together.

 

There's a problem ... that too should be backed up.

So neither does allowing wider access legally, along with it's
advantages to all.

 

CLiff, what does any of that have to do with whether a user has
"rights" on his work computer to change some things and install
programs?

I understand the necessity of IT and backups and all that.

 

Within proper limits & with controls things can work all ways.
Lacking such can readily result in very real (and costly) messes.

OTOH If you are a stand-alone user and take full responsabiliy
($$) for *everything* that can go wrong ... (and nature does
indeed side with the hidden flaws) ....

There's more to it than simple occasional backups of
a few almost-random filesystems.