system password
- Thread starter subverta
- Start date
malberttoo
Well-Known Member
Welcome to the forum.
The Surface Pro 3 uses the UEFI, what you called the BIOS. It does not have a "system" password, and the admin password that you found only locks down the UEFI, not the system itself.
Thanks Malbert. I'm just learning about the surface pro. My new job has me learning about them and testing them out for office use. Is there something else I can use to add an extra layer of security in case a tablet gets "stolen or misplaced" I put an admin pw so UEFI is locked down and the windows user pw of course but the system pw was another nice feature to use and kept the higher ups happy for security on the laptops.
malberttoo
Well-Known Member
You mentioned "stolen, misplaced, and security". For the first two, check out Prey (https://preyproject.com/), the first 3 devices are free, or you can of course use the much more well-known LoJack For Laptops (http://www.lojack.com/Laptops), but I believe they are pricier than Prey. But they are also a more enterprise-class app than Prey.
As for security, Microsoft has a service called InTune, that lets you perform some actions remotely such as wipe certain data, wipe the whole machine, or reset passwords. The info is here- https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj676679.aspx
There may be a few other options as well, depending on the environment in which your devices are managed.
I will check both of those products out Malbert. Now on the current laptops we use EFS but I'm seeing on the surface there is also bitlocker which seems to do the same things except that it encrypts whole drives instead of just certain files on a drive. Is this more of a preference or is bitlocker a newer more enhanced version of EFS?
malberttoo
Well-Known Member
Bitlocker is whole-drive encryption. http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-vista/bitlocker-drive-encryption-overview
(Edit- Ok technically it encrypts the whole Windows volume, in case some wish to make a differentiation...)
You can disable it if need be.
Yes that part I got. What if you use bitlocker on your whole C: drive and a file gets corrupt because of something a software or the HDD did wrong. Next time you restart, will that C: drive start up or no because it sees that something is wrong? Basically can bitlocker differentiate between outside tampering of files or internal HDD mess ups?
malberttoo
Well-Known Member
Honestly, the only time that you as the support staff would probably have any issue with Bitlocker, is when doing some certain things outside the machine- for instance making an image with older software that isn't compatible, etc.
The situation you described, it just doesn't quite work that way.
