Working with User Accounts (part 1) - Creating a New User Account & Using the Guest Account for Visitors

Through User Accounts in Control Panel, Windows provides a simple post-setup method for creating new accounts, making routine changes to existing accounts, and deleting accounts. When you launch User Accounts in Control Panel, you'll see a window similar to the one shown in Figure 1.

If your computer is a member of a domain, User Accounts has far fewer options; you can change your picture and change your password. In a domain environment, all management of user accounts beyond these basic tasks and those shown in the left pane of User Accounts is normally handled at the domain level. You can manage local accounts on a domain-joined computer using the Advanced User Accounts Control Panel. For more information, see Section 16.2.6 on Section 16.2.6.

1. Creating a New User Account

To create a new user account, in the User Accounts window shown in Figure 1, click Manage Another Account. The Manage Accounts window appears, as shown in Figure 2. (To get there directly, in the main Control Panel window click Add Or Remove User Accounts, under User Accounts And Family Safety.)

Click Create A New Account, which takes you to the window shown in Figure 3, where you can create a new account with a minimum of fuss. You need to supply only a name for the account and decide whether you want to set up the account type as standard user or administrator.

Note:

The name you provide when you create a new account with Windows is used for both the user name and the full name. The user name is the primary name used internally by Windows. You use it when you log on without the benefit of the Welcome screen (such as in certain networking situations) and when you specify the account name in various commands and dialog boxes for setting permissions. The full name is the name that appears on the Welcome screen, at the top of the Start menu, and in User Accounts. You can change either name at any time after the account is created.

If you want to specify any other information about the account—including setting a password—you must make changes after you create the account, as described in the following section. Alternatively, you can use the Local Users And Groups snap-in or the Net User /Add command, both of which allow you to create an account and make several other settings simultaneously.

2. Changing Account Settings

Making routine changes to an account is easy with User Accounts. To change your own account, start at the main User Accounts page, shown in Figure 1. To change another user's account (you must have administrative privileges to do so), click Manage Another Account to display the page shown in Figure 2, and then click the name of the account you want to change. You'll see links to options similar to those you can make to your own account.

In this window, you can make the following account changes to your own account or (if you're an administrator) other accounts on your computer:

• Account name Although User Accounts doesn't explain the distinction, when you change the name here you're changing the full name (the one that appears on the Welcome screen, on the Start menu, and in User Accounts), not the user name. (You must have administrator privileges to change the account name.)

• Password You can create a password and store a hint that will provide a reminder for a forgotten password. If the account is already password protected, User Accounts allows you to change the password or remove the password.
  

• Picture If you don't want a user to be identified as a flower (or whatever icon Windows selects for the account), you can change the picture associated with the account name on the Welcome screen, at the top of the Start menu, and in User Accounts. Clicking the change-picture link shows all the pictures stored in %AllUsersProfile%\Microsoft\User Account Pictures\Default Pictures, but you're not limited to those choices. Click Browse For More Pictures, and you can select any picture in bitmap, GIF, JPEG, or PNG format, such as a picture of yourself or a favorite scene. Windows reduces and crops the picture to fit the picture box.

• Parental Controls Clicking this link takes you to Parental Controls, where you can place restrictions on the user by limiting the hours of use, filtering web content, and specifying which games and other programs can be run. You must have administrator privileges to view or change Parental Controls settings, and you can't configure Parental Controls settings for administrator accounts.
  

• Account type With User Accounts, you can change the account type to Administrator (which adds the account to the Administrators group) or Standard User (which adds the account to the Users group). If you want to add the account to other groups, you must use Advanced User Accounts, Local Users And Groups, or the Net Localgroup command. For more information about those alternatives, see Section 16.2.6 on Section 16.2.6. (You must have administrator privileges to change the account type.)

For your own account (that is, the one with which you're currently logged on), you can make the following additional changes by clicking links in the left pane:

• Manage Your Credentials This link opens Credential Manager (known as Stored User Names And Passwords in earlier Windows versions), which lets you manage stored credentials that you use to access network resources and websites.

• Create A Password Reset Disk This link launches the Forgotten Password wizard, from which you can create a password reset disk.
  

• Link Online IDs With Link Online IDs, you can associate an online ID (a Windows Live ID, for example) with your user account in Windows. Depending on the online ID provider, linking an account in this way might enable you to share resources in a homegroup in new ways or to access your data from any computer signed in to the online ID.
  

• Manage Your File Encryption Certificates This link opens a wizard that you can use to create and manage certificates that enable the use of Encrypting File System (EFS). EFS, which is available only in Windows 7 Professional and above, is a method of encrypting folders and files so that they can be used only by someone who has the appropriate credentials.

• Configure Advanced User Profile Properties This link is used to switch your profile between a local profile (one that is stored on the local computer) or a roaming profile (one that is stored on a network server in a domain environment). With a local profile, you end up with a different profile on each computer you use, whereas a roaming profile is the same regardless of which computer you use to log on to the network. Roaming profiles require a domain network based on Windows Server. To work with user profiles other than your own, in Control Panel open System, click Advanced System Settings; on the Advanced tab, click Settings under User Profiles.

• Change My Environment Variables Of interest primarily to programmers, this link opens a dialog box in which you can create and edit environment variables that are available only to your user account; in addition, you can view system environment variables, which are available to all accounts.
  

• Manage Your Fingerprint Data This link, which appears only on computers with an installed fingerprint reader or similar biometric device, provides a path to the program (usually provided by the manufacturer of the biometric device) in which you register and manage fingerprints to be used for logging on.

3. Using the Guest Account for Visitors

The Guest account is designed to allow an infrequent or temporary user such as a visitor to log on to the system without providing a password and use the system in a restricted manner. By default, the Guest account is disabled; no one can use an account that's disabled.