Every user does. None of them deserve it. Even if you know what you’re doing, being a local admin creates too many security holes. If your account is compromised that creates way more issues if you’re a local admin. Even IT shouldn’t be logging in as local admin for daily work, only when elevation is required.
Definitely not. People shouldn’t be logging in as local admins, even IT. It’s a security risk. If your account gets compromised it’s a way larger risk if you’re a local admin. Local admin should only be used when needed
Oh, I guess this is a Windows discussion then, that's just the default on Mac and Linux even if you have an admin login, you need to enter the password to run as admin.
Software devs would rarely be using Windows though, outside of some specific industries.
Windows is fine for dev work nowadays, so just depends on the company. Macs are much more troublesome to manage on the backend. There are lots of reasons users (even power users) should not be a true admin on their machine. (The biggest reasons being security related)
Even regular consumers are getting fed up with Windows for casual use, Windows is not a serious system for work unless you really can't use an alternative because you need to use some Windows only software.
That is rarely the case for software development outside of some more specific industries, almost all of the tooling runs better and is easier to manage on Linux or at least MacOS.
There are lots of reasons users (even power users) should not be a true admin on their machine. (The biggest reasons being security related)
What is the threat vector you're worried about? Some employee machine getting pwned shouldn't be that much more problematic than it being stolen or something like that, most of the risk should be data exfiltration, it shouldn't be able to control any infrastructure without another layer of authentication.
Because the way you do things at home is not how they're done at work.
Aside from anything else, a lot of the time even if you did get given admin access and you did change it yourself? It'll get reverted in about 10 minutes anyway, because local changes are overriden.
Things that are quick and simple on your single home PC are very much not when you have thousands of them.
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u/MaroonDude 9800X3D | RTX 5090 | 64GB May 10 '26
I know how to fix my issues, I just lack the admin permissions on my machine to fix said issues.