@alegr said:
A virus won't be able to hook itself deep in the OS, that's what matters. And for what it's worth, 7 years of such practice kept me virus-free, with two teen kids and wife sharing the same computer, starting with Windows 2000... One time my son called me at work and was begging me to tell him my Admin password, for he wanted to install a supposedly cheat for a game... Of course, that was a trojan. Had he had admin privileges, the system would get pwned.
I keep the admin password for my brother's/nephew's computer. A few months ago, they had a little trouble with their cable modem provider. The nephew (15 yo) calls me asking for the admin password so the cable provider can install something. In a moment of weakness I give it up*. What a fuckin' mistake. Should never have trusted the kid. Luckily, cleaning it was easy enough by using a USB hard drive connecter.
* (Yes I understand that normally their should be no software, but I wasn't sure if there was some login software, such as PPoE).