Win 7 allowed REG commmand from command line from standard account

Question

I only have a standard account (non-administrator) account on a Win 7 machine.

In order to disable Aero-Peek I was able to successfully run the following from the command prompt:

REG ADD HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\DWM /v EnableAeroPeek /t REG_DWORD /d 0 /f

Why did it let me do that from a non-administrator account? Shouldn't this sort of operation be restricted. I could cause all sorts of havoc to the registry.

Answer 1

Your command shows that you set the setting for your current user (HKCU means HKEY_ CURRENT_USER). This is fine an requires no admn rights. Only if you would change system settings under HKLM (HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE), you would need admin permissions.