If you’ve just begun using Windows 7 you may have notice the UI (user interface) for adding new users in Windows 7 has completely changed from previous versions of Windows. In any event, if you share your computer, you may want to consider creating separate individual accounts for each user in your house hold.
Not only will each user have their own respective accounts, as an administrator you can administer each account individually and allow certain privileges accordingly base on what you think is appropriate.
There are several ways to to add new users account into Windows 7, I believe the easiest method is to add new users within ‘COMPUTER MANAGEMENT’. First right-click on ‘MY COMPUTER’ an select ‘MANAGE’.
Next expand ‘LOCAL USERS AND GROUPS’ tab. Afterwards, rigth-click on ‘NEW USERS’ folder and choose ‘NEW USER’. Now you will be able to enter the user name and password. The password can be set to have the user immediately change their password on initial log-in.In this example we’ll create a new user call ‘John‘ and force them to change the password on their first log-in. Select ‘CREATE’ to create the account.
By default, Window assigns every newly create user account part of the ‘USERS’ group which has limited access to the computer and are prevented from making accidental or intentional system-wide changes. Below is a list of different user groups available on Windows 7:
Administrators:Administrators have complete and unrestricted access to the computer/domain
Backup Operators:Backup Operators can override security restrictions for the sole purpose of backing up or restoring files
Cryptographic Operators: Members are authorized to perform cryptographic operations.
Distributed COM Users: Members are allowed to launch, activate and use Distributed COM objects on this machine.
Event Log Readers:Members of this group can read event logs from local machine
Guests: Guests have the same access as members of the Users group by default, except for the Guest account which is further restricted
IIS_IUSRS: Built-in group used by Internet Information Services.
Network Configuration Operators: Members in this group can have some administrative privileges to manage configuration of networking features
Performance Log Users:Members of this group may schedule logging of performance counters, enable trace providers, and collect event traces both locally and via remote access to this computer
Performance Monitor Users:Members of this group can access performance counter data locally and remotely
Power Users:Power Users are included for backwards compatibility and possess limited administrative powers
Remote Desktop Users:Members in this group are granted the right to logon remotely
Replicator: Supports file replication in a domain
Users:Users are prevented from making accidental or intentional system-wide changes and can run most applications
To assign the user to different group, right-click on the account and select ‘PROPERTIES’. Click on the ‘MEMBER TAB’ and select ‘ADD’ which is located at the bottom of the window. Type in the exact full name of the group you wish the account to be associated with and press ‘OK’. In this example, we’ll use John’s account that we created earlier and add it to the ‘ADMINISTRATORS’ group
Enjoy….