Question ESET Anti Theft setting.

[Morro]

Now that I have the full version of ESET Smart Security Premium, I thought it was a good idea to activate the Anti-Theft option. (Change to that is low, but not impossible.) But it wants me to make a Phantom account? A dummy account with limited access, to fool the possible thief. Is this going to change the way I need to login myself? (I use Windows Hello.)

How does this Phantom account work?

 

[Jonny Quest]

Now that I have the full version of ESET Smart Security Premium, I thought it was a good idea to activate the Anti-Theft option. (Change to that is low, but not impossible.) But it wants me to make a Phantom account? A dummy account with limited access, to fool the possible thief. Is this going to change the way I need to login myself? (I use Windows Hello.)

How does this Phantom account work?

You probably won't be able to use Windows Hello, as it shows 2 user options (one being the Phantom account) to login with. I had to tick my main user name to get Windows to load my Admin account.

I did click on the Phantom user on start up, and it went into the Windows set up screen, but only for the first page (IIRC) where you had to check your preferences for Windows inking etc. Once I was on the home screen, it was a guest account, as at the top right was the option to log into my Microsoft account and ESET wasn't loaded in that Phantom account.

You can't log out of that account by restarting Windows, or powering it off and on, it keeps auto logging into that Phantom account (no Windows users choices at start up). so in that sense, it works great.

To get out of it, I had to go into my ESET account, then tick the link for the Anti-Theft site, and disable it from there. I totally uninstalled it from the desktop app setting, otherwise it will leave you a yellow warning that anti-theft has been disabled.

Here are the instructions I needed to follow to disable it. The steps for ESET worked, I didn't need to go into the Windows user accounts to delete it, it was already deleted.

[KB3622] Delete an ESET Anti-Theft phantom account

support.eset.com

This was what I received in my email from ESET, as far as a warning.

 

[Morro]

You probably won't be able to use Windows Hello, as it shows 2 user options (one being the Phantom account) to login with. I had to tick my main user name to get Windows to load my Admin account.

I did click on the Phantom user on start up, and it went into the Windows set up screen, but only for the first page (IIRC) where you had to check your preferences for Windows inking etc. Once I was on the home screen, it was a guest account, as at the top right was the option to log into my Microsoft account and ESET wasn't loaded in that Phantom account.

You can't log out of that account by restarting Windows, or powering it off and on, it keeps auto logging into that Phantom account (no Windows users choices at start up). so in that sense, it works great.

To get out of it, I had to go into my ESET account, then tick the link for the Anti-Theft site, and disable it from there. I totally uninstalled it from the desktop app setting, otherwise it will leave you a yellow warning that anti-theft has been disabled.

Here are the instructions I needed to follow to disable it. The steps for ESET worked, I didn't need to go into the Windows user accounts to delete it, it was already deleted.

[KB3622] Delete an ESET Anti-Theft phantom account

support.eset.com

This was what I received in my email from ESET, as far as a warning.
View attachment 287319

OMG, thank you so very much for testing this. I am going to deactivate Anti Theft right now.

 

[Sorrento]

I had a bad experience a while ago with ESET Anti-theft, I would never use it again, just my opinion.

 

[Morro]

I had a bad experience a while ago with ESET Anti-theft, I would never use it again, just my opinion.

Thank you for sharing your experience with it. I have already deactivated it, and since I had not made a Phantom account, yet that was easier than I thought. (With help from the link Jonny Quest shared. )

 

[Jonny Quest]

The only reason I would see the need to use Anti-Theft, is on my smartphone, as that could more easily be lost or stolen compared my home PC's/notebooks.

 

[Morro]

The only reason I would see the need to use Anti-Theft, is on my smartphone, as that could more easily be lost or stolen compared my home PC's/notebooks.

True, I guess I reacted like a kid with a new toy.

 

[Jonny Quest]

True, I guess I reacted like a kid with a new toy.

Oh, same here, as it was, is new to me, too