I’ve just ordered 7 brand new Macs, but in the meantime I need help with a Windows XP computer.
I want to do something which ought to be simple, but isn’t. Or, maybe I’m simple.
You know how Windows allows you to set up multiple user accounts for a single computer?
Cool.
But, when I set up a new account, SOME of the programs installed on the computer are available to the new user and some are not. What I want to do is to have a simple log-in system wherein several users can log-in to the same machine with UNIQUE LOG-IN NAMES AND PASSWORDS but then will get the same access to programs and files as anyone else.
Are you setting their permissions the same? Make sure all accounts are set to be Administrators. This allows them to do or change anything on the computer.
That’s the easiest way to do it, but risky unless you’re sure you trust the other users. If for example you have a teenager at home, I’d be leery of giving him/her Administrator access to the machine!
Dale, in XP Pro you can open My Computer, right-click on the local drive (e.g., your C drive), click Sharing and Security, click on the Sharing tab, click on the highlighed “Shared Folders” link under “Local Sharing and Security,” go back to your window and drag the icon for your C drive into the All Users/Documents window that appears. It should place a shortcut to the C drive there. With that done, the icon for the C drive in Explorer should have a little hand holding the drive, indicating that it’s shared for all users. Same process for other drives, CD drives, etc. Assuming you’re not talking network access, that should do it. I hope.
There’s a process called “Simple Sharing” that lives in the Advanced properties, which I thought was supposed to sort of do the same thing–but as a relative newcomer to XP myself, it’s all geek to me. Perhaps someone more savvy could expalin that. Also, I’m not sure if this is the same process for XP Home. YMMV, consult your computer professional, past performance is no guarantee of future results, etc., blah blah.
Dale, when you say some of the programs are available to the new user do you mean that the user doesn’t see them on their Start menu or do you mean that the new user cannot run them in any way (for example, by using Windows Explorer to browse out to the folder containing the application and double clicking it)?
Folks have already given you answers for the second problem, but you may be asking about the first. Here’s how to fix it. You need to move the shortcut for the app into a folder which makes it available to everyone:
Log in under an account with administrative privileges.
Open Windows Explorer and go to C:\Documents and Settings
You should see a folder for each user on the computer, _plus_ an additional folder called "All Users"
Under each folder (including "All Users") there is a folder called "Start Menu." The structure of this folder mimics your start menu. Expand the Start Menu folder in the account of a user who _can_ see the app you want to make available to the new user's Start menu and the Start Menu folder of the "All Users" folder as well.
Locate the shortcut for the program. It's probably in an individual user's Start Menu folder. For example, if user "Dale" can see an application called "Foo" on his start menu but user "Chiff Receptionist" cannot, it might be in a folder called C:\Documents and Settings\Dale\Start Menu\Programs\Foo, and the shortcut itself might also be called foo.
Expand the All Users\Start Menu\Programs folder in the tree t the left-hand side of Windows Explorer, but don't click on it (or if you do, go back and click on the folder you found in the previous step.
Now drag the entire Foo **folder** from "Dale's" Programs folder into "All Users" Programs folder. This makes the shortcut available to everyone.
It's actually much simpler to do than I made it sound, but I wanted to be clear.
