Windows ten and eleven tips

How to share a Windows 10 PC

Need to share a Windows 10 PC amid employees or temporary workers at the office, or with family members at home? No trouble — here's how to do it.

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In some offices, computers are shared between two or more employees or temporary workers. That sounds like a recipe for disaster, simply Windows 10 has slap-up tools for allowing multiple people to share a single PC without letting them read, edit, or delete each other's files and folders; use or delete each other'south applications; or make arrangement-wide customizations.

These tools tin also be a big help for people who piece of work from home and demand to share their PC with a family member some of the fourth dimension. They allow you to set upwardly and log in with different user profiles and so each user has admission to only their own files and folders, apps, and preferences. In this piece, I'll show y'all what to practice.

This commodity has been updated for the Windows 10 Oct 2020 Update (version 20H2). If you have an earlier release of Windows 10, some things may be slightly different.

Setting upwardly accounts for sharing a Windows x PC

Windows 10 makes it piece of cake for multiple people to share the aforementioned PC. To practise information technology, you create dissever accounts for each person who volition use the calculator. Each person gets their ain storage, applications, desktops, settings, and so on.

1 person, the PC's ambassador, sets up and manages all the accounts, including a variety of arrangement settings that merely the ambassador tin can access. The administrator account is established when Windows is offset installed or used on the automobile. (You lot tin too upgrade other user accounts to ambassador status, as I'll cover after in the story.)

If y'all're an administrator, setting upwardly a user business relationship is like shooting fish in a barrel. First yous'll need the email address of the person for whom you want to set up an business relationship. Ideally, this should be the sign-in information for their Microsoft account (such every bit an @outlook.com or @hotmail.com address or a corporate email address at an organization that uses Outlook) so they'll be able to apply all of their existing Windows settings, get access to their OneDrive storage, and download and install apps from the Microsoft Shop. Everyone can sign up for a Microsoft account for gratuitous.

For at present, nosotros'll assume that the person y'all want to add has a Microsoft business relationship. Subsequently on I'll show you how to fix an account if they don't have one and don't want to register for one, but note that you can't set up up restrictions for family members unless they sign in with a Microsoft account. Accounts for children can just use an @outlook.com or @hotmail.com domain.

To add a user, click the Outset button, select Settings and then choose Accounts. On the Accounts screen, cull Family & other users from the bill of fare on the left. To fix up an account for a co-worker, become to the "Other users" section and click Add someone else to this PC. To gear up upwards accounts for family unit members that let you set age limits, game and app restrictions, etc., instead cull Add a family unit member nether the "Your family" section.

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Later you create an account for someone else, the name appears on the Accounts folio. (Click whatever epitome in this story to overstate information technology.)

On the screen that appears, enter the e-mail accost of the person for whom you lot want to create a user account, click OK and and then Stop. The user'due south name now appears on the "Family & other users" accounts page.

It besides appears when yous click the icon representing the current user of the PC, midway downwardly on the left side of the Start menu when you click the Offset button.

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When an business relationship name is clicked in the Start menu, information technology will show all of the accounts on the machine.

If you're the owner of the new account, there are ii ways to kickoff using information technology. You can click the icon representing the account of the electric current user of the PC, midway down on the left side of the Start menu. That displays all the accounts on the PC. Click your account name and log into your account with your Microsoft business relationship password. Or you can restart the PC: The Windows login screen will now have two accounts on it — yours and the administrator'south. Y'all can click your business relationship proper name and log in with your Microsoft business relationship countersign.

The account will take its own split OneDrive storage. Each user'south local files and folders won't be accessible to the other. Yous will see the Windows apps you've installed, but not anyone else'due south, and vice versa. Given that it'south a Microsoft account, files and settings will sync with all other devices continued to your account.

Creating a new user business relationship without using a Microsoft account

Creating a shared PC if the other person doesn't have or want a Microsoft account takes a niggling flake more work.

To practise it, go to Settings > Accounts > Family & other users > Add someone else to this PC. (This is aforementioned choice you'll make if you're calculation a family unit member without a Microsoft account, but remember that you won't exist able to use parental controls.)

On the screen that appears, click I don't have this person's sign-in information. Then at the bottom of the next screen, click Add a user without a Microsoft account.

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Yous can add together a user who doesn't have a Microsoft account equally a local business relationship.

Now you lot tin can add a user name and a password. The person's account proper noun will now bear witness upwards the same way as if you had created one using a Microsoft account.

When yous create an account for someone in this style, it'south chosen a local account. Unlike a Microsoft business relationship, it won't sync settings between devices, and it doesn't requite access to OneDrive. In improver, when someone has a local account, they won't be able to download or install whatsoever apps from the Microsoft Store. They won't be able to install desktop applications on their own, either — when they effort to install them, they're prompted for the password of the ambassador'southward business relationship. And so an administrator will have to be nearby to blazon in the password in order for them to install desktop applications.

Switching between accounts

Once your account has been set up, it's piece of cake to switch from the business relationship currently running on the machine to your ain. If someone else is currently using Windows 10 on the machine, and you want to use it, y'all tin click the Start button, click the icon representing the current user's business relationship midway down on the left side of the Start menu, then click the account to which yous want to switch and blazon in the password.

You tin can, of course, besides log in from the lock screen, which displays all of the user accounts on the machine.

Ane matter to go along in heed when several people use a PC with carve up accounts: Even when someone is not using the PC, they nonetheless remain signed into the business relationship unless they sign out or the PC is restarted. Then several people might be signed into accounts, even though only one person is actively using the PC. (This does not mean that users take whatever access to the others' accounts. At that place tin be just one active account at a time; an individual user will still demand to re-enter the countersign to see their account.)

To see which users are currently signed in, click the Start push button, so click the icon representing the electric current user'due south account midway down on the left side of the Start card to see all of the automobile'due south accounts. Look underneath each account. The words "Signed in" will appear under the appropriate accounts.

What does it mean that someone is signed into their business relationship, even if they're not currently using information technology? When someone is signed in, Windows 10 saves the state of that person's user account — which applications the person was running, the files they were working on, and so on. That style, when they switches dorsum to using their account, everything will be in place, and they won't have to waste fourth dimension launching apps, opening files, and and so on.

This is useful, only information technology can exist problematic too, because it can pb to lost piece of work. When a PC is restarted or shut downwardly, all users on it are automatically logged off. Say someone is logged into their account and hasn't yet saved work — if the computer is switched to some other business relationship, and the person using that second account restarts or shuts down the system, the get-go person volition lose their unsaved work.

The upshot? Information technology'due south always a good thought to log out of your account before letting someone else apply the same figurer. Information technology simply takes a moment: Click your account name at the top of the Start menu and then click Sign out.

Managing accounts

If you lot want to let some other user have administrator access, it's simple to exercise. Select Settings > Accounts > Family & other users, click the account to which you desire to give administrator rights, click Alter account type, and so click Account type. Choose Administrator and click OK. That'll exercise information technology. You can e'er change it back to a standard user account later using this same method.

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You lot can alter a standard user account to an Administrator account.

It'southward also like shooting fish in a barrel to remove accounts — as long equally you're the administrator. Select Settings > Accounts > Family & other users, click the business relationship you desire to remove and and then click Remove. A screen appears warning you lot that when you lot delete the account, y'all besides delete all data associated with it, which include files, desktop setup, apps, music and and so on. Too, notation that you can only delete an business relationship if the person has signed out of Windows x.

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When y'all delete an account, you likewise delete all data associated with it.

One time you've got it in hand, you lot'll notice that this is a simple and useful mode for sharing a Windows 10 PC amongst multiple people.

Bonus tip: Turn on the hidden Windows 10 ambassador account

I've got 1 more tip for you: how to plough on something that is sort of a super-administrator account subconscious in Windows 10.

As I explained previously, the account yous create when you install Windows is the PC's administrator account — it gives you command over how Windows ten works on the PC, what other accounts can be created then on. But Windows x also sets upward a hidden ambassador account during installation.

This hidden account has one advantage over a normal administrator account — when yous use information technology, you lot won't get any User Business relationship Control (UAC) prompts. That makes it much easier to troubleshoot and customize Windows, because you won't exist constantly bothered by those pesky UAC notices.

Some people refer to this hidden administrator account equally an elevated account, and a normal one as an un-elevated business relationship.

Information technology's easy to plow on and use the hidden administrator business relationship:

  1. Make sure that you're using your normal Administrator business relationship.
  2. Click the First button, gyre downwardly through your apps and click Windows Arrangement.
  3. Right-click Command Prompt from the drop-down menu that appears, and then click More and select Run as administrator. The command prompt launches. Expect in the prompt's title bar — it will read "Ambassador: Command Prompt."
  4. At the command prompt, type net user ambassador /active:yes and press the Enter

That turns on the hidden ambassador account. It will appear on the Windows 10 login screen and on the Get-go card screen — just click it to apply it every bit you lot would any other account.

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When yous turn on your PC'south subconscious ambassador account, it shows upwards only like whatever other business relationship in Windows x.

If y'all want to disable the hidden account, follow steps one through 3, and at the control prompt, type net user administrator /active:no and press Enter.

This commodity was originally published in March 2016 and most recently updated in Jan 2021.

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