techrecovery | Jul. 12th, 2009

I've just moved companies from an IT department that locked its machines right down, to one where users have full admin rights over their machines (both laptops and desktops). In the week I've been in this new place, I've seen maybe 5 machines infected with viruses, and several that needed reimaging because their owners have installed so much junk on them that they move at a snail's pace. In my last job, where I was for nearly 4 years, I think I saw one virus infection, and it got caught and cleaned by the server before the user even logged in.

I'm still quite new in the IT world, so answer me this: should users be granted admin rights over their machines? Am I wrong in thinking that this is a completely stupid and utterly reckless plan that leads to nothing good at all? Does anyone have any good examples of when users having admin rights is actually beneficial to the IT dept?