Why Each User of Your PC Should Have Their Own User Account and How to Set Account Types

Does more than one person use your PC? Have you ever experienced any of the following?

 

• Someone puts up a wallpaper that you don’t like or changed one that you wanted.
• Desktop shortcuts that you use keep getting deleted.
• The Desktop or directories in the user folder becoming a disorganized mess.
• Administration becomes more difficult because of disorganization.

 

These are some of the reasons that you should think about setting up a user account for each user of your computer.

 

In the last article we went over how to set up user accounts. Now we will cover why each user on your system should have their own user account, how to set account types, and how to set up a guest account.

 

Why Each User of Your PC Should Have Their Own User Account

 

Here are some good reasons each user of your PC should have their own user account. After going over the reasons why, I’ll show you how to set account types and what a guest account is.

 

It allows each user to have their own Desktop to organize and customize the way they want.

With their own account each user will have their own Desktop. They can set their own wallpaper and customizations. That means colors, themes, fonts, and more. They will also be able to organize their shortcuts in a way that works best for them. Another benefit is that with everyone having their own Desktop, they won’t make unwelcome changes to yours.

 

It gives everyone their own user directory in which to keep their own files.

You can find your user directory by opening File Explorer and navigating to C:\Users. Your user directory literally has your name (or whatever your username on Windows is). If everyone has their own user directory all of their personal files are in their own user folder on Windows. That is a far better way to go than to mix everyone’s files together. Individual user accounts can be a great way to avoid a mess.

 

It keeps the system far more organized and easier to administrate.

Setting up each user with their own account will give you a more organized system. With better organization it becomes easier to do administrative tasks like cleanup and malware scans of user files.

 

It is more secure.

You can set up accounts with different privileges to control how users can use the PC. It’s not wise to allow everyone to have administrator privileges. A far safer option is to only give users the access that they need.

 

What are Account Types?

 

There are three types of user account in Windows 10.

 

Administrator

With an administrator account you have control of the entire system. You can create accounts and choose how much access users have. An administrator account is good for those who will be doing administrative tasks on the PC.

 

Standard User

A standard user has access to most of the system but is limited in the changes they can make to it. You can run programs but can’t install or uninstall software. A standard account is good for users that won’t be doing administrative tasks.

 

Guest

Guests aren’t recognized by name. They can do much of what a standard user can do but without the privacy. A guest account is good for guests that just need to use the PC to do simple things like web browsing.

 

How to Set Account Types on Windows 10

 

To get started setting account types follow these steps.

1. Click “Start”.
   
   
   
   
   
   
2. Click “Settings”.
   
   
   
   
   
   
3. Click “Accounts”.
   
   
   
   
   
   
4. Click “Family & other users”.
   
   
   
   
   
   
5. Click the user that you want to set the account type of.
   
   
   
   
   
   
6. Click “Change account type”.
   
   
   
   
   
   
7. In the dropdown menu choose the type of account that you want to assign to each user.
   
   
   
   
   
   
8. Click “OK”.
   
   
   
   
   
   

How to Create a Guest Account

 

It can be worth it to set up a guest account in case someone wants to borrow your PC to do a simple task like browse the web.

1. Right click on “Start”.
   
   
   
   
   
   
2. Click “Command Prompt (Admin)”
   
   
   
   
   
   
3. If User Account Control pops up click “Yes”.
   
   
   
   
   
   
4. Type the following (without the quotes): “net user Visitor /add /active:yes” and hit the Enter key.
   
   
   
   
   
   

After reading the above as well as my last post,
How to Add a New User Account to Windows 10, you know how to create and delete user accounts, why you should create user accounts for each user of your PC, how to set account types, and how to create a guest account. Go on and set up the user accounts on your computer so you can have a more organized and easy to administrate system.