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Andrew just wants to open his files on Windows 10 (programming.dev)

submitted 4 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/windows-10-why-dont-i-have-permission-to-open-my/6f33e814-3cc6-4ce6-993c-dffcf1bb5b75

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 months ago (1 children)

What is the reason we don't run as root?

We are human and make mistakes. Not running as root means the computer will ask us to confirm when we are about to do something major (like a software update, or formatting a partition). This reduces the chance of making big mistakes. (But I don't see why VLC shouldn't be able to run as root, if the user so desires.)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago (1 children)

(But I don't see why VLC shouldn't be able to run as root, if the user so desires.)

You don't run VLC as root because you don't especially trust that build of VLC

We don't run random stuff as root because it's a stupid risk. We try to only take necessary risks. Risks that make things easier. Running random programs as root gains you nothing and causes annoyance in that you need to fix permissions on its configuration files if you want to run out as a user

There is nothing stopping you though if you want to set up a Linux machine where you log in as root, run a desktop environment as root, run apps as root. You're unlikely to be taking an unreasonable risk as a home user.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

But I don't see why VLC shouldn't be able to run as root, if the user so desires.

For the reasons you described, I won't run VLC as root, and I don't think 99% of users would need to. But if someone wanted to do it, the software shouldn't stop them from doing it (beyond giving a warning and asking them to confirm).