Windows 10 and 11 tips

How to share a Windows 10 PC

Need to share a Windows ten PC among employees or temporary workers at the office, or with family unit members at home? No problem — here'southward how to practise it.

Contributing Editor, Computerworld |

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

These tools tin can likewise be a large aid for people who piece of work from home and demand to share their PC with a family fellow member some of the fourth dimension. They allow yous to ready and log in with different user profiles and then each user has admission to only their own files and folders, apps, and preferences. In this piece, I'll prove you what to do.

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

Setting up accounts for sharing a Windows x PC

Windows 10 makes it easy for multiple people to share the aforementioned PC. To do information technology, you create carve up accounts for each person who volition use the figurer. Each person gets their own storage, applications, desktops, settings, and then on.

One person, the PC'southward ambassador, sets up and manages all the accounts, including a variety of system settings that only the administrator can admission. The ambassador business relationship is established when Windows is starting time installed or used on the machine. (You tin also upgrade other user accounts to administrator status, as I'll comprehend later in the story.)

If yous're an administrator, setting up a user account is piece of cake. First you'll need the electronic mail address of the person for whom you desire to set up an account. Ideally, this should be the sign-in information for their Microsoft business relationship (such as an @outlook.com or @hotmail.com address or a corporate email address at an organization that uses Outlook) so they'll be able to utilize all of their existing Windows settings, get access to their OneDrive storage, and download and install apps from the Microsoft Store. Anybody can sign upwards for a Microsoft account for free.

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

To add together a user, click the Start button, select Settings and and so choose Accounts. On the Accounts screen, cull Family & other users from the carte du jour on the left. To gear up up an business relationship for a co-worker, go to the "Other users" section and click Add someone else to this PC. To set up accounts for family unit members that let you set historic period limits, game and app restrictions, etc., instead choose Add a family member under the "Your family" section.

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After you create an account for someone else, the proper noun appears on the Accounts page. (Click any image in this story to enlarge it.)

On the screen that appears, enter the email address of the person for whom you want to create a user account, click OK and and then Finish. The user's name now appears on the "Family unit & other users" accounts page.

Information technology also appears when y'all click the icon representing the current user of the PC, midway down on the left side of the Starting time menu when you click the Start button.

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When an account proper name is clicked in the Outset card, information technology volition show all of the accounts on the machine.

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

The account will have its ain separate OneDrive storage. Each user's local files and folders won't be accessible to the other. You lot volition see the Windows apps y'all've installed, simply not anyone else'south, and vice versa. Given that it's a Microsoft account, files and settings will sync with all other devices connected to your business relationship.

Creating a new user account without using a Microsoft business relationship

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

To do information technology, go to Settings > Accounts > Family unit & other users > Add someone else to this PC. (This is same selection you lot'll make if yous're adding a family member without a Microsoft business relationship, merely remember that you won't be able to utilize parental controls.)

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

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Y'all can add together a user who doesn't take a Microsoft account as a local account.

Now you tin can add a user name and a password. The person'southward business relationship name will now show up the same manner as if you had created i using a Microsoft account.

When you create an business relationship for someone in this mode, it's called a local account. Unlike a Microsoft account, it won't sync settings between devices, and information technology doesn't requite admission to OneDrive. In add-on, when someone has a local business relationship, they won't be able to download or install whatever apps from the Microsoft Store. They won't be able to install desktop applications on their ain, either — when they attempt to install them, they're prompted for the password of the administrator's account. Then an administrator will take to be nearby to type in the password in social club for them to install desktop applications.

Switching between accounts

Once your account has been set up, it's easy to switch from the business relationship currently running on the automobile to your own. If someone else is currently using Windows 10 on the automobile, and you want to utilise it, you can click the Starting time button, click the icon representing the electric current user's account midway downwardly on the left side of the Start menu, and so click the account to which you lot want to switch and type in the password.

Yous can, of course, also log in from the lock screen, which displays all of the user accounts on the machine.

One thing to keep in listen when several people apply a PC with split accounts: Even when someone is not using the PC, they nevertheless remain signed into the account unless they sign out or the PC is restarted. And then several people might be signed into accounts, even though simply one person is actively using the PC. (This does not mean that users take any access to the others' accounts. There can be just ane active account at a time; an individual user will still demand to re-enter the password to see their account.)

To run across which users are currently signed in, click the Offset push, then click the icon representing the current user's account midway down on the left side of the Kickoff carte to encounter all of the car'south accounts. Await underneath each account. The words "Signed in" will appear under the appropriate accounts.

What does it mean that someone is signed into their account, even if they're non currently using it? When someone is signed in, Windows 10 saves the state of that person'due south user account — which applications the person was running, the files they were working on, and so on. That way, when they switches back to using their business relationship, everything will be in identify, and they won't have to waste time launching apps, opening files, and so on.

This is useful, but it can be problematic as well, because information technology can pb to lost work. When a PC is restarted or close down, all users on it are automatically logged off. Say someone is logged into their account and hasn't notwithstanding saved work — if the reckoner is switched to another account, and the person using that second account restarts or shuts downwards the system, the kickoff person volition lose their unsaved work.

The upshot? Information technology's always a practiced thought to log out of your account before letting someone else use the same computer. It only takes a moment: Click your account proper name at the top of the Start menu and then click Sign out.

Managing accounts

If you want to let another user take administrator access, information technology's elementary to practise. Select Settings > Accounts > Family & other users, click the account to which you want to requite administrator rights, click Modify account type, and then click Account type. Choose Administrator and click OK. That'll practice it. Yous can e'er change it back to a standard user business relationship later using this same method.

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You can change a standard user business relationship to an Administrator account.

It's too easy to remove accounts — as long as you're the administrator. Select Settings > Accounts > Family & other users, click the business relationship you want to remove and then click Remove. A screen appears warning you that when you delete the account, you also delete all data associated with it, which include files, desktop setup, apps, music and and so on. Also, note that you can but delete an business relationship if the person has signed out of Windows 10.

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When you delete an account, you likewise delete all data associated with information technology.

Once yous've got it in manus, you'll observe that this is a simple and useful manner for sharing a Windows x PC among multiple people.

Bonus tip: Turn on the hidden Windows 10 ambassador account

I've got one more tip for you: how to turn on something that is sort of a super-administrator account hidden in Windows x.

As I explained previously, the business relationship you create when you lot install Windows is the PC's administrator account — it gives you command over how Windows 10 works on the PC, what other accounts can be created and and so on. But Windows x also sets upward a subconscious administrator account during installation.

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

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

It'southward easy to plow on and use the hidden administrator account:

  1. Brand sure that you're using your normal Administrator account.
  2. Click the Start button, scroll downwardly through your apps and click Windows Organisation.
  3. Correct-click Command Prompt from the drop-downward carte that appears, then click More and select Run as administrator. The command prompt launches. Look in the prompt'due south title bar — it will read "Administrator: Command Prompt."
  4. At the command prompt, blazon net user administrator /active:yeah and press the Enter

That turns on the hidden ambassador account. It volition appear on the Windows 10 login screen and on the Start menu screen — just click it to apply it as you would whatsoever other account.

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When you turn on your PC's subconscious administrator business relationship, it shows up just similar any other account in Windows x.

If yous want to disable the hidden account, follow steps 1 through 3, and at the command prompt, type cyberspace user administrator /agile:no and press Enter.

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

Preston Gralla is a contributing editor for Computerworld and the author of more 45 books, including Windows 8 Hacks (O'Reilly, 2012) and How the Internet Works (Que, 2006).

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