How Vista User Accounts work

Windows Vista was designed from the ground up to be a multiple-user operating system. Anyone who uses the computer must log onclick (or type) your name and type in a passwordwhen 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, 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 holderalong 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.

• History and cookies. Windows maintains a list of recently visited Web sites independently for each person; likewise, it stores a personal collection of cookies (Web site preference files).

• Control Panel settings. Windows memorizes the preferences each person establishes using the Control Panel, including keyboard, sound, screen saver, and mouse settings.

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  Note: Not all Control Panel settings are available to everyone. Really important ones that affect the entire PC, like the date and time, and network settings, can be changed only by the Lord of the PCthe administrative account holder, described in a moment.

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• Privileges. Your user account also determines what you're allowed to do on the network and even on your own computer: which settings you can change in the Control Panel, and even which files and folders you can open.

Behind the scenes, Windows stores all these files and settings in a single folderyour Personal folder, the one that bears your name. You can open it easily enough; it's at the top right of the Start menu. (Technically, your Personal folder is in the Computer->Local Disk (C:)->Users folder.)

This feature makes sharing the PC much more convenient, because you don't have to look at everybody else's files (and endure their desktop design schemes). It also adds a layer of security, making it less likely for a marauding 6-year-old to throw away your files.

Since the day you first installed Windows Vista or fired up a new Vista machine, you may have made a number of changes to your desktopfiddled with your Start menu, changed the desktop wallpaper, added some favorites to your Web browser, downloaded files onto your desktop, and so onwithout realizing that you were actually making these changes only to your account.

Accordingly, if you create an account for a second person, when she turns on the computer and signs in, she'll find the desktop exactly the way it was as factory-installed by Microsoft: basic Start menu, nature-photo desktop picture, default Web browser home page, and so on. She can make the same kinds of changes to the PC that you've made, but nothing she does will affect your environment the next time you log on. You'll still find the desktop the way you left it: your desktop picture fills the screen, the Web browser lists your bookmarks, and so on.

In other words, the multiple-accounts feature has two components: first, a convenience element that hides everyone else's junk; and second, a security element that protects both the PC's system software and other people's work.

If you're content simply to use Windows, that's really all you need to know about accounts. If, on the other hand, you have shouldered some of the responsibility for administering Windows machinesif it's your job to add and remove accounts, for exampleread on.