Windows 7: The Missing Manual

Chapter 23. Accounts & Logging On

For years, teachers, parents, tech directors, and computer lab instructors struggled to answer two difficult questions: How do you rig one PC so several different people can use it throughout the day, without interfering with one another’s files and settings? And how do you protect a PC from getting fouled up by mischievous (or bumbling) students and employees?

Introducing User Accounts

All Versions

Windows 7 was designed from the ground up to be a multiple-user operating system. Anyone who uses the computer must log on—click (or type) your name and type in a password—when the computer turns on. Upon doing so, you discover the Windows universe just as you left it, including these elements:

• Desktop. Each person sees his own shortcut icons, folder icons, and other stuff left out on the desktop.

• Start menu. If you reorganize the Start menu, as described in Chapter 1, you won’t confuse anybody else who uses the machine. No one else can even see the changes you make.

• Documents folder. Each person sees only her own stuff in the Documents folder.

• Email. Windows maintains a separate stash of email messages for each account holder—along with separate Web bookmarks, a Windows Messenger contact list, and other online details.

• Favorites folder. Any Web sites, folders, or other icons you’ve designated as Favorites appear in your Favorites menu, and nobody else’s.

• Internet cache. This folder stores a copy of the Web pages you’ve visited recently for faster retrieval the ...