Safe (non-admin) computing prevents PDF exploits too

I've not seen one of these things before this week, when I had the fortune to see it in action on an older machine. Some unrelated forum site running PHP tried to push some malware on a machine I used. A handful of executable files in %temp%, but no further damage beyond that.

The machine wasn't mine, but I told its owner what happened and I later got to apply a tool I hacked together that prevents downloaded executables from running. Said tool removes execute permissions from new files in limited user-writeable areas.

Lockdown hack or not, it was amusing to see this thing try to do damage and fail miserably. Sure, an updated Adobe Reader fixed it permanently, but were this a zero-day exploit it'd have fallen flat right on day zero.