Windows XP Home Edition: The Missing Manual

Chapter 16. Accounts, Security, and Logging On

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

Like the Windows 2000 under its skin, Windows XP is designed from the ground up to be a multiple-user operating system. On a Windows XP machine, anyone who uses the computer must log on—click (or type) your name and type in a password—when the computer turns on. And upon doing so, you discover the Windows universe just as you left it, including these elements:

• Desktop. Each person sees a different set of shortcut icons, folder icons, and other stuff left out on the desktop.

• Start menu. If you reorganize the Start menu, as described in Chapter 2, you won’t confuse anybody else who uses the machine; no one else can even see the changes you make.

• My Documents folder. Each person sees only her own stuff in the My Documents folder (see Chapter 2).

• Email. Windows XP maintains a separate stash of email messages for each account holder—along with separate Web bookmarks, MSN 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. You can ...