Due to a few people justifying purchasing new PCs due to viral and malware infections, I've decided to write a little howto on saving your money. Since most users do little more that email, surf the web, write and/or print a document, you most likely have more than enough horsepower to do all that and more without purchasing a new PC.

What is LUA or Limited User Account

First things first, we're going to learn what LUA means. LUA is Microsoft's term for Limited User Account. By doing your daily tasks as a LUA, it greatly reduces your susceptiblity to the threat of viruses and other malware. A great majority of users do all of their computing as a member of the Administrator's group. Together, we're going to end that practice. I'm going to take you step by step in properly setting up a Limited User Account.

• Click on the "Start Menu".
• Select "Control Panel" from the "Start Menu".
• Select "User Accounts".
• Select "Create a new account".
• Select a name for this account.
• Select the "Limited" tab.
• Select the account that you just created and select "Create a password".
• Try to use a password of at least 8 characters consisting of letters and numbers.
• Finally, the user listed as "Computer administrator" should be given a password as well.