TechDuke

Disabling the Guest account has been recommended by security experts since the Guest account was first created. Under previous Windows versions, the Guest account had virtually no real-world purpose and served simply as another means for an attacker to gain access to a system, especially because the Guest account also has no password by default.

In Windows XP, it is another story.The Guest account can still be an easy target for attackers, but in Windows XP Home and in Windows XP Professional systems that are not connected to a network domain, the Guest account is an integral part of sharing resources with other computers on the network. In fact, in Windows XP Home, it is not possible (at least not without the prerequisite jumping through the ring of fire upside down while chanting Bill Gates… you get the idea) to truly delete the Guest account.

By clicking Control Panel and going into User Accounts to turn off the Guest account in Windows XP Home, all you’ve really done is disable the Guest account for local logon.The account won’t appear on the Welcome screen and nobody will be able to walk up and log on to the computer using the Guest account; however, the actual credentials and password are still active behind the scenes. Simply put, Windows XP Home relies on the Guest account for its network file and resource sharing.Your best bet to secure the Guest account on a Windows XP Home system is to assign a strong password—a password that is difficult to guess or crack—to the Guest account.

Creating a password for the Guest account is also not an easy task in Windows XP Home. When you open the User Accounts console from the Control Panel in Windows XP Home and select the Guest account, Create a Password is not one of the available options.

To create a password for the Guest account, you will need to open a command line window (click Start | All Programs | Accessories | Command Prompt). Enter the following: net user guest .

Leave off the brackets and simply type the password you want to assign at the end of the command line and press Enter. Oddly, now that you have created a password for the Guest account, the options for changing or removing the password will now appear in the User Accounts console.