User accounts can be very interesting if you have one computer at home and there are for example three persons which are using this computer. For example:

• Yourself
• Your son
• Your daughter

Now you don't want that your son and daughter can access your documents and files. Further you don't want that your son can access the documents and files of your daughter and your daughter can't access the documents and files of you son.
Of course you would self have access to every file on the entire computer, also to the documents and files of your son and daughter so you can see what kind of files they have stored in their accounts. (For example pornographic, discriminating or violent files).



An other reason to use user accounts is to help you protecting your computer against viruses, spam and other things that can damage your computer.
For example you don't want that your son and daughter can install software on the computer. This to prevent that bad software will be installed that can damage your computer or because you don't want that your son installs 20 heavy graphical games which are violent games.

Again an other profit of using user accounts is that every user can make their own visual settings like a personal wallpaper, different kind of Start menu etc.
This makes the computer personal to the person that is working at it.

This is all possible in Windows XP.

How do you create these user accounts?
To help you creating user account you can follow the instructions below.

Click Start -> (Settings) -> Control Panel -> User accounts
(you have to be logged on as an Administrator account)
The next screen is shown.

Change an account
To change an account you simple click on 'Change an account' and the next screen is shown.

1. You can change the name of the account. This name is also used to log in.
2. You can create or change a password for the account. (If the account has already a password, this option is changed to 'Change the password'. If you create a password this password must be entered to log on.
3. Change the picture. Here you can choose a picture for the account.
4. Change the account type. Here you can change the account type to 'Computer administrator' or type 'Limited'.

Computer administrator = can access the entire computer and has full control over very account, file, folder. Can install software, remove software, create accounts etc. This user can do everything on the computer.
This can be yourself.

Limited = has only access to its own account, Can not access files, folders, documents etc. of an other account, can not install software, can not delete software, etc. It has only full control to documents in his own account.
This can be your son’s and daughter’s account.

5. Delete the account. Here you can delete the account and all files, documents, pictures etc. which were made on this account. If you click this option you will be asked to delete all files made on this account also or to keep these files and just delete the account.

Create a new account
To create a new account on your computer you click this option.This name will be appear on the Welcome screen and on the Start menu.

After you clicked this option you will be asked to:

• enter a name for this account (for example your son's or daughter's name)
• to select an account type (Computer administrator or Limited)

Finally you can click the 'Create account' button to create the account.

Change the way users log on or off
Here you can change the way users log on or off. There are 2 options to choose:

1. Use the Welcome screen
If you check this checkbox Windows will start up using the Welcome screen.
This is easy to logon, you just click your own picture and enter the password to log on.
If you don't check this checkbox, Windows will start up using the classic logon screen. Here you enter your name and your password to logon.










Welcome screen enabled                            Welcome screen not enabled


2. Use fast User switching (you can only choose this option as the 'Use the Welcome screen' option is checked).
   With this option you can quickly switch another user account without having to close any programs. Then, when the other user is finished, you can switch back to your own account.

1. yourself (in my example: Dave) = administrator
2. Your son = Limited account
3. Your daughter = Limited account
4. Guest = Guest account (this account is used for users who don’t have an account on your computer. They use the guest account. Files, folders and settings which are password-protected are not accessible for this account)