CompTIA A+® Certification All-In-One For Dummies®, 2nd Edition

2.3. Implementing Permissions and Rights

When controlling a user's access to the system, you typically modify the user's rights and permissions. Microsoft has made a huge distinction between a permission and a right.

• Permission: A user's level of access to a resource, such as a printer or file

• Right: A user's privilege to perform an OS task

In this section, you discover the difference between permissions and rights within the Windows OS and how to implement both.

2.3.1. Rights

If you were to log on to your Windows system as just a user account and then double-click the time in the bottom-right corner to change that time, you get an error message indicating that you do not have the privilege to change the time. This is an example of user rights. The user account that you are currently logged in with does not have the right to change the system time, which is an action that typically has to be performed by an administrative account.

There is a large list of user rights; some of the most popular ones are listed below:

• Access this computer from the network. This right is needed by anyone who wants to connect to the system from across the network: for example, if you wish to connect to a shared folder on computer A, you need to this right on computer A.

• Back up files and directories. This right is needed by anyone who wishes to back up files on the computer. For security reasons, not everyone should be able to perform backups on a system, so Windows controls who can perform a backup ...