Return Admin Only Software

If you ReturnAdminOnlySoftware for a refund, the manufacturer may fix it.

I returned McAffee AntiVirus in May '02, got a refund for the software and my paid phone support call. IIRC, I then tried Symantec, and the same thing happened, and by '03, both products ran non-admin. (At least they didn't pop up errors when one tried to simply log in as a non-admin. (It seems some AV still don't do updates as non-admin...--KnownProblems...)

Now, I'm not claiming I alone caused the fixes, but I bet it helped.

Lots of software is returnable. E.g. Windows (which you might want to return due to to unresolved security bugs) and most other software bought from Microsoft's online store, is returnable; I checked their return policy a while ago.

I haven't tried more recently because I switched to a more secure OS than Windows. Malware authors will easily adapt if nonadmin mode becomes prevalent. There's little that they want to do (e.g. monitor keystrokes, send spam, launch DDoS attacks, steal passwords, email addresses and other info) that really needs admin access.

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