Are there any risks running your host as administrator?

[braj]

I am on Win Vista with an Admin user running Reaper, and I have Cakewalk Studio Instruments plugins that are having issues being fully authorized, they display a message that I have x number of days left till I authorize. They had already been authorized when I installed. I have gotten no response from Cakewalk after several inquires to find a fix. The plugs run fine on another computer of mine that runs Vista.

I have tried changing all the permissions on the plugin dll's and exe's to admin and that doesn't fix anything. If I run Reaper as Administrator (right-click>properties>compatability, check 'run as administrator', Reaper gives a Windows message 'do I want to run', clicking yes loads Reaper fine and the plugs load without prompting to authorize. Problem apparently solved, just is there some risk that I'm running by giving Reaper these privileges? Is there some other fix I can do to accommodate these plugins? They really aren't the greatest but I did pay for them so it is almost a matter of principle at this point. Thanks in advance.

[zvon]

None to my knowledge. I'm on Win 7 and I've been running a few hosts as admin for 2 years.

[liquidsound]

Only if you are connected to the Internet and have a weak password. Never mind the firewall which you need to be a genius to confg it right.

[braj]

Alright then, I guess I'm ok

[braj]

Well, in Reaper I just found a major downside: you can't drag/drop midi files from the desktop when it is running as admin. So I think I'm giving up and only using these plug on that laptop, they are not premium plugs anyhow, only stereo outs on the drums but they do come in handy for the laptop. Oh well, live and learn, no more buying any plugins unless I demo them extensively first.

[deleted]

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[braj]

maybe this will work in Vista too :
switch back to your standard user account - create a folder in c:/ and install your host and your plugs there - this saves you from any permission issues as you have full privileges over this folder!
works for me in Win7

Thanks for the tip, I'll try that tomorrow.

[Richard_Synapse]

It should be perfectly safe, unless you caught a virus or trojan. But then running any installer .EXE (they run with elevated rights as well, this is why Windows asks every time) can be dangerous.

The risk that the DAWs themselves exploit the elevated rights in some way is pretty much zero, ihmo.

Richard

[WOK]

Although everywhere in these "tips and tricks" and "security" advises in the web it is written not to do it, there is no real difference about security. If you use the internet without an anti-virus or a sandboxed browser and the latest system updates, the risk of catching a virus as a standard user is nearly the same.
Swtiching back and for with the users may produce more problems with the installed programs (like your authorisation problem). It's a good idea to install the software with the same user that you will use for running them (administrator).

[liquidsound]

Also you should have an additional user account to use for Internet surfing and avoid to use the administration account for that.
Of course the administrator account must be protected by a strong password.

[Johnny!]

oh come on, I use administrator account with uac turned off all the time and nothing ever happened. avoid pesky porn or warez sites and it's highly unlikely to infect your system. also a bit of common sense is always welcome

[contrary]

I run Vista ( hasn't been a bad OS here , but we didn't get it until sp2 was already out ).

What makes me a bit miffed is how the overwhelming majority of my vst and Vsti's run no sweat with both UAC and the daw programs not initiated with administrator credentials , but then a few odd ones ( like IKMM stuff ) don't.

Given the ratio , shouldn't those few devs whos pluggs have issues be to blame ?? WTF??