Setting up a New User Account in Windows XP

Posted by staffwriter in Uncategorized

If you have ever had to share a computer, you know it can be troublesome at times, especially the other user or users keep changing your wallpaper, homepage, and all sorts of other things. Fortunately, now you can create an account for them, allowing you to keep your settings and documents safe, while allowing them to customize their own profile.

Step 1: From the Start Menu, open the Control Panel. From Control Panel, open the User Accounts Screen. This is where we’ll be working for the rest of this guide.

Step 2: Once in the User Accounts window, click on “Create New Account”. You will then be asked to enter the name of the new account. The name you enter here will be the name displayed on the Windows Welcome Screen, the name they log in with, and the name displayed on the Start Menu.

Step 3: Choose what kind of account you want to make. This decision is rather important. If you choose to make the new user a Computer Administrator, you give them rights to change or remove other User Accounts, make system wide changes, install new programs, and give them access to all files. If you make the new user a Limited User, they can still change all of their own settings, including theme, background and user picture, and can install some programs.

If you are the primary user or owner of the machine, or you are creating the account for a guest, choose the Limited option.

Step 4: Once you have created the new user account, you can do all sorts of stuff from their account, including Changing the Theme and background, Adding a Password and Customize the User Picture.

Note: Just about any program installed on the primary administrator’s account (your account) will be available for use by the other accounts on the computer. In other words, you won’t need to reinstall your anti-virus software, printer, internet browser or favorite word processing software for each user on your computer.