How to Create a Windows Limited Account

A fellow blogger recently had a problem with a virus that rendered her computer not boot able. Here's a simple trick to help protect your Windows operating system from being compromised. Last year our computers at home were infected with a virus that was not detected by regular antivirus programs. The only thing that would stop our computers from being infected was to use a non-administrative Windows user. That way, the virus was only able to infect files from that user not all the files. And most Windows vital files can only be written to by an administrative user.

Here's how to create a regular user in Windows XP. I don't have Vista or Win7 at home, but the procedure is very similar.

1- Using an administrator user, go to Control Panel.

2- Open User Accounts, and open User Accounts again in the next window.

3- Select Create Account:

4- Enter a name for the new user and click Next.

5- Be sure to select "Limited" then click on the Create Account button.

And now you have a brand new limited account to safely surf the net.

Things to know:

To install some add-ons to Internet Explorer, you might have to temporarily have to change the user to "Computer Administrator". Once installed, you can switch it back to "Limited".

If your computer was previously infected, the virus might have changed the permissions to the vital C:\Windows directory to full access to all users. Unfortunately, the Home version of Windows XP does not permit to see or change permissions of the files. If someone needs it, I will try to find how to do this, otherwise the limited accounts will have access to the C:\Windows directory.

Some antivirus programs will not permit to be managed by limited accounts. But they will work fine.

If you get a virus using your limited account, you just have to logoff that user and logon with an administrative account, copy the data files you want to save from that user, go to Control Panel and Delete the limited account that has the virus. And that should be enough. And create another limited account.

One more thing, since you might not use the administrative user very often, make sure to note the password and keep it in a safe place.

Safe surfing!

Jasmine's mount Rajah

I could I have forgotten to talk about Jasmine's mount Rajah. She spent almost all her 90,000 golds to get the Bengal Tiger. Every Jasmine needs her tiger. And his name is Rajah of course.

Look at that cute tiger face!

Jasmine, my girl wizard

OK, time to present my third wizard. At the time, I wanted my wife to get interested in the game, so I made a girl wizard. And since she's a big Disney fan, I tried to find a name related to Disney. The only name I could find was Jasmine. I made her a Fire wizard because I really liked Fire School during beta, I had to have a Fire wizard.

She is my first wizard without the ability to heal herself. I had to learn how to fight almost all over again. Instead of long fights, I had to make the kill as quickly as possible. I had to use more blades and traps. Also the spells in the deck need to be more carefully chosen to make sure victory comes as quickly as possible.

She is now level 47. Her brother Gilroy already got her the Malistaire robe. She can't wait to be Grandmaster and wear it.

Next time, I will present you my next wizard: Blaze Darkflame. He's Balance-Death and at the moment, he is making the streets of Marleybone safer.

How to see other wizard's stats

I am interrupting my wizard presentation series with this little guide. Ever wanted to know what your friends or that wizard you just saw is wearing? A lot of people don't know that, so a thought I would show you how.

First, select a friend from your friends list or just click on a wizard around you, that you are curious about so that you bring his picture and menu on the upper right corner of your screen like this:

Now, click on the arrow on the lower left of the window. Look at the picture above, I have circled the arrow in red. You will then get the full specs of this wizard. See below:

The, you can click on the arrows on both sides of the title "Traits" to see which gear he or she is using. I have circled the arrows on the picture above:

And if you hover your mouse over the different items around the picture of the wizard, you will be able to compare your items with his or her's. In the picture, we can see that I have a pet Satyr and my friend has a Stormzilla. Looks like we both use our level 48 pet. Your gear is identified by the fist in the corner.

It's that easy...

Liam Hawkheart, Life Wizard

Liam is my second wizard, he is Life-Balance. Life is the school I would have chosen first. But in beta, it was not possible to skip the admission test that selects your main school so I decided to stick with my test result: Death school.

With Liam, I could have soloed every thing up to Malistaire. When he calls in his minion fairy, he's almost invincible. Outside of PvP of course. With life school, fights are long but almost always easy.


He has finished Dragonspyre and is now starting Grizzleheim. I did not do any farming, so he's not as well equipped as Gilroy, but he is using old crown clothes from his big brother.

Both Life and death wizards fight are slow paced. Their attacks are not very strong, but with their high healing capacities, they can take quite a lot of damage.

Liam is my first wizard to get a mount. The black stallion was purchased for 70,000 gold. I have not purchased crowns yet. My wizard get rich rather quickly. I rarely buy things and they sell almost all the gear they get from drops that they don't use. My next wizard is Jasmine. She just purchased a Bengal tiger for 90,000 gold. I will tell you more about her in my next post.

Gilroy Darkflame, Death with an Ice ring

Gilroy is my main wizard. He is a Grandmaster Death with Life as a second. He's been my main wizard since I started playing Wizard101 in beta, in June 2008. During the beta period, he was Death-Fire, hence the name Darkflame. He has been through a few wipes, and after the final wipe before the launch of the game, he switched his second school from Fire to Life. Since he likes to solo a lot, I was afraid he would have too much trouble in the new worlds that would be coming. It's a choice I came to regret, since he had no problem soloing using almost only his main school spells. I thought about changing back to Fire when it became possible, but it was expensive and housing was coming. Now that I have enough gold again, the mounts are here...


I am proud of Gilroy, he as been everywhere in the spiral and done every quests possible.




The Ice ring

Gilroy has a secret. He's probably not the only one, but still there must be a few like him. He is a Death wizard and he wears an Ice ring. Yes, he is wearing the Rime-Edged ring with +277 max health and +170 max mana. I have been asked that question a few time in the game, how come a Death wizard wears an Ice ring?

When Dragonspyre came out, KI forgot to make the new DS rings school specific. So at the time, He went to the DS ring store and bought the most powerful ring available. A few days later KI made the correction, and Gilroy was still wearing the ring. So the ring was now school specific but he was still wearing it. The only problem is, if he ever removes it, he won't be able to put it back on his finger. Since then, I have never found a Death ring as powerful as this one. Until he does, he will continue to wear it.

Gizmo

Gizmo, the pioneer dragon, is Giroy's favorite pet. He also likes Lord Midnight, his wraith pet. But the Gizmo reminds him of the adventure of beta testing. Pioneer dragon were given to the beta tester just before the game the game was open to public.


Next post, I will present my second wizard, Liam HawkHeart.

Crown Shop Bug FIXED

Just a little note to say that the Crowns Shop bug is fixed, at least for me. This fix came with yesterday's update.

My second wizard has bought a Black Stallion with gold. He's my only wizard with a mount. My main wizard, Gilroy Darkflame has enough gold for a permanent dragon, but he wishes for a blue one. And it's not available as permanent.

My next post should be to present you all my wizards. I currently have four wizards (Death-Life, Life-Balance, Fire-Ice and Balance-Death) I feel the time as come for a fifth one. And I think he will be Storm.

Easier Marleybone streets

My fourth wizard, Blaze Darkflame, made it to Marleybone today. He's Balance-Death. Of my four wizards, he's the one who had the less difficulty with Krokopatra. At this time she's still wondering what happened... He really kicked her ...beep... Well, he did have a secret weapon. Blaze is wearing one of the first generation Crown hat with Judgement. That spell can really it hard.

OK, to the point of this post. Has he made his way in Hyde Park, I noticed that our friends at KI made it easier for the new players in Marleybone. The Monsters on Hyde Park are walking much more in the middle of the street, leaving a space on both side wide enough to pass, just like a side walk. I don't know if they also changed the other streets, but if people are still complaining now about the missing sidewalks in Marleybone, they should have seen it before...

I remember my first time in Hyde Park, back in beta. I go caught the moment I set foot on the street. That was mad. Since then I had noticed that they made it easier, but what I saw today, is really child's play.

I still don't like Marleybone, too dark of a place. I will report back with what I think has changed.

Crown Shop Bug

I don't know if you have heard about it. Some people don't see the description and price of the items in the Crowns shop. Here's how my Crowns shop looks like:

I reported the bug to KI. But recently I discovered a workaround. On my computer, I always use a user without administrative permission. But the other day, I tried to play Wizard101 on my administrative account. And I had the surprise to see that my Crowns shop was not bugged. After promoting my usual user to administrative permission, it was working too. Removing the permission, the bug returned. I updated my support ticket with KI with that information. Mr Lincoln replied to my saying that information was very interesting.

A few days later, on Wizard101's forum, Mr Lincoln said:

**UPDATE** Seems we may have tracked down the problem and we are testing it
internally to make sure that it fixes the issue with the missing text on the
Crowns shop, without breaking something else. Please be assured that we will
keep you updated on the progress. Thank you to everyone who helped us
troubleshoot, as it initially seemed like a very hit-and-miss problem.

So be patient, a solution is coming.

Master Artisan!

Yay! Woot! I finally made it Master Artisan.

I don't know how, but earlier tonight I finished crafting the last bookcase. In about two hours I managed to find five Blood Moss and three Black Pearls. That must be a record, at least for me.

After that I wanted to craft something for me. I would have love to make the carousel, but it needed a lot of Black Pearls but I was sick of those pearls...lol. So I decided to make the Wyrm-Crowned bed. It did not need anything rare and it was my second favorite item. So here it is:

I was a little disappointed to see that it was smaller than the regular beds, but it still looks great. Not sure I will craft more, but at least I can craft what ever I want now. We'll see, maybe some cool recipes will come out in the future.