The Biggest Threat to Windows Security

I discovered this quite by accident yesterday. The biggest threat to your computer's security is Microsoft itself! This is probably not a surprise to any IT professionals.

My work PC was upgraded to Windows XP Professional last year. (Whoo Hoo!)Our IT department usually works under the premise of You can be secure or you can get work done. Actually, I'm just kidding. We do normally get work done and are reasonably secure, but as a user, I can't do much to personalize my desktop or computing environment.

After the new "deploy", I could no longer put my cheerful seasonal pictures on my desktop as a background. For example, one that I posted in my blog in November 2006 http://creative-wryting.blogspot.com/2006_11_01_archive.html. You can guess the symbolism!

While I was rummaging around Microsoft Office 2003 Tools and the Microsoft Office Picture Manager, I came across this and a number of other photos I had used before. If you right-click on an image in the Picture Manage, once of the options is to Set as Desktop Background.

Clicking on this, and, lo and behold, my favourite picture now appeared on my desktop!

Therefore despite the best efforts of our IT, Microsoft over-rode their restrictions!