[Space Cowboy]

Hi guys,awsome forum..hopefully u guys can help me out..
this is what i have..a wife,who loves XP,and 2 daughters one who likes xp,one who doesnt..all use 1 computer..i tried running only XP and having 3 users,but everytime one of the daughters installed something in there profile,,it would somehow load on my wifes when she would log in..so i got the bright idea,i would partition the harddrive into 3 partitions..and each user have there own OS..is this possible?? or is there a better way to make it where each users stuff doesnt load on other profiles when they log in???

thx in advance guys and Merry Christmas to all

[Junglizt]

[Brian Frank]

Some stuff may endup being accessible to everyone. I would not recommend them all logging on as admininstrator because everything is at the hands of anybody that logs on. Create a separate account with only certain priveleges probably best to just create a power user account and have everybody log on as that. Do this especially if your kids are young. Little kids can screw things up, as well as anyone that doesn't know what they are doing. I don't log in as admin and wouldn't recommend you allowing people to do so either.

[Junglizt]

[Space Cowboy]

the problem is simply this..wife is an admin..kids i have as users..
if one daughter installs aim.or kaza when my wife logs in under her user account,aim..kaza.or whatever other program my daughter has loaded ..starts up with her profile..they all want diff backgrounds/themes is why i set it up with 3 diffrent user accounts..and added daughters as users only..if i set it where thses proggys dont load at start up for my wifes sake,then when daughters login they have to manually start these proggys,and when wife loags in there back..im beating my head against wall,i know there has to be a way to make is as if each person has there own OS,and there own proggys..is why i suggested and wondered if there was a way to make a triple boot,letas say 2 10 gig partitions,and 1 20 gig partition..the 2 10's each have tehre own OS.and the 20 has XP so when i boot the pc,i have 3 OS's to choose from..THAT would be the way..but would suffice if XP would let me seperate each user account so each doesnt effect the other

[CUViper]

Well, I don't know any real way to separate them like you are saying, but you can sort of do it by manipulating the shortcuts. For instance, you could put a shortcut to AIM in their individual startup folders, in "\Documents and Settings\User\Start Menu\Programs\Startup". You will have to do this for every such program, but it should work.

If you can get it set up with user accounts, that will be much better than having different os's, for a few reasons: you don't have to reboot to switch between users; critical updates and such only have to be applied once; software that should be shared among all of them only needs to be installed once; etc.

[Space Cowboy]

thx for the responses.keep em comming ..i would rather use 1 OS (XP) and have it where i have diff user accounts..shortcuts arent the problem,every user gets one to any programs.my problem is,programs my daughters load via there user accounts are also exec at startup on wifes account as well..I DONT WANT MY WIFES ACCOUNT having all my daughters programs run at startup...only want them to run on daughters account

[CUViper]

right... what i am saying is, for instance, in AIM disable the built-in option for it to load on startup. Then, for the accounts that DO want it to load on startup, put a shortcut in the "startup" folder of that particular user.

[Space Cowboy]

ok lemme try that thx for the response..Merry Christams all

[DrPaulFlammond]

Make sure tha t for prog's that are only to be attached to one user or two, remove them from the "All Users" startup folder and put them in the startups of the users who need them. There may be some issues with progs sho used registry keys instaed of shortcuts in startup folders. You may need to remove keys from the "run" folder in the registry and make startup shortcuts for the appropriate users.

May take some time, but it will do what you want with the least work really.

-DPF

[Space Cowboy]

thx alot,that sounds like it will do the trick