3 Reasons Why You Need To Add Users To Your Laptop PC

Laptop computers not only provide convenience and are portable but also cheap compared to some years ago. Now these days, students, workers, and even freelance workers prefer laptops over desktop PC. With telecommunication companies like Telikom PNG Ltd and computer shops selling portable internet routers that can connect to internet via sim cards, laptops popularity and use will continue to grow. Home based small businesses and freelancers will continue to rely on laptops to for most of their work.

How Many User Accounts Can You Have On Your Laptop?

Because laptop is often regarded as personal item, most laptop owners prefer a single user account. By default, during the installation of the Operating System or configuring the  factory preinstalled operating system,  one user account is required. For that reason most users prefer to use that and doesn’t bother adding more user accounts unless necessary. Most laptop owners think of how many users will share or use the same laptop and since they are the only one using it, they prefer not to add additional users. Now here is three (3) reasons why you should consider adding more user accounts.

1. Back Up Administrator Account

By default, the first user account is often assigned as Administrator account. With Administrator account type, the user can install/uninstall software, install printer drivers and make changes to the PC.  In the event for some reason you forget your password, there is no way you can log in. You can fix it but requires a bit of technical know or you might need assistance of a technical person. If you don’t have internet access to google up how to fix or find some technical person, it can be stressful.

Therefore, to avoid this kind of situation, create a second user account with administrator account type. You don’t necessarily have to use this account but in the event you loose your main user account password, you can easily log in using the second user account and reset your password for the main user account.

2. Separate User Account for Kids and Friends.

If you have kids, there is always the pressure from kids to use your laptop to watch movies or cartoon movies in the evenings. If you  have school kids they might want to use your laptop to type their assignments and etc. As parents, this kind of situation is hard to avoid. There are two options to address this. One is to buy the kids a laptop of their own or create a separate standard user account in your laptop. The downside with buying the kids a laptop is that if you have more kids, they will be competing to use it. The older kids may be possessive of the PC, leaving the smaller kids out or vice versa. Kids are kids and as a parent we experience it all the time.

Creating a separate account for them, the kids know that the  laptop is yours and you decide who to use and they will respect that in most cases.

Another one is there would be friends or relative who would like to use it temporarily. In this kind of situation, allowing them to use another account is better as you don’t have worry about them copying your files or look at them. Using a separate account separate what is yours and them. You can even create a temporary account for them to use, if they are going to use it for some time.

3. Doing Presentations

If the nature of your job requires you to do lots of presentations in meetings, conferences, classes, lectures and etc, it’s worth creating a separate account and use that for presentations. The reason for this is that, if your PC is already projected onto the white screen, then  when you go through your files the whole audience is watching and reading your file names, folder names, applications you have and all sorts of things. Sometimes this can reveal some information that should otherwise be personal.

Therefore, you need to copies files you need for the presentation to that user account’s documents folder and  do your presentation without having to reveal other information in the process to the audience.

Adding or Creating a User Account

Here are the steps to creating additional users in your laptop if you have to for reasons stated above.

1. Type “ Control Panel “ without the quotation marks in the search box close to the start button on the computer.
2. Click Control Panel from the popup menu.
3. Click on User Accounts

Figure 1-Control Panel-User Accounts option.

4: Click Add A New User In PC Settings. This will open the Settings dialog box. This will have two categories of users. Your family and Other Users. Under Other Users, click Add Someone Else To This PC option.

5: On the sign in dialog box, click  I Don’t have this person’s sign-in information.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 2-Microsoft Account sign in option.

6: In the next dialog box, click Add User without a Microsoft Account

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Figure 3-Create a user without Microsoft Account.

7: Then in the next dialog box, type in the user name. Just one word will do. Add the  password and confirm it. Then answer the three security questions. Make sure you write the password and security question answers in a notebook for reference. Then click Next to complete it.

That’s it, you have added a new user.

Login In Using the New User Account.

Now to complete the process and to create login in profile of the user account, you must login in as the new user.

1. Log off. Now you should have the user name showing on login screen
2. Click on it and type in the password to login. The computer will go through the profile creation process which will take a few minutes and after the desktop for the new user account will show up.

Make the New User Account  Standard User Account.

If you are creating a user account for your kids or friends use, it is important to make it a standard user. Making the user account Standard User type will prevent the user from doing system changes and software installations. Also, prevents them from accessing the other users documents.

1. Login using your  own account.
2. Type “ Control Panel “ without the quotation marks in the search box close to the start button on the computer.
3. Click Control Panel from the popup menu.
4. Click on User Accounts
5. Click Manage Another Account.
6. Click the name of the Account you have just created.
7. Click Change Account Type
8. Click Standard from the dialog box. Then click Change Account Type.

Note. From this dialog box, you can Delete The Account, Change the Account Name, Change the Password.

That’s it. You have completed adding a New User.