Section 12.1. Introducing User Accounts

12.1. Introducing User Accounts

When you first installed Windows XP or fired up a new Windows XP machine, you were asked for a name and password. You may not have realized it at the time, but you were creating the first user account .

Since that fateful day, 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, Teletubbies-hillside 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.