Lyte Byte

Sometimes it becomes necessary to setup Guest Account in your laptop or desktop when some friends or your family relatives visit you, so that they can have access to Internet and computer without you fearing about your personal details and still have the privacy in your computer.

So here is a tutorial on how to setup and manage guest accounts in Vista.

Step 1: Go to Control Panel -> User Accounts and Family Safety.

Step 2: Click Add or remove user accounts. Accept the User Account Control warning. Under Manage Accounts both the Administrator account and the Guest account will be listed.

Step 3: Initially if the Guest Account is turned Off and if you would like to turn it on, then click the Guest Account. You will be asked “Do you want to turn on the guest account?“. Click Turn On and now your friends or family relatives will be able to access your computer through Guest Account while logging on. But Password-protected files, folders, or settings will not be accessible to guest users.

Step 4: To turn off Guest Account, go to Manage Accounts. (Control Panel -> User Accounts and Family Safety -> Add or remove user Accounts) Click Guest Account and Click Turn off the guest account.

You can also setup password protected new user accounts so that they can better access to the computer. To add new user account, go to Manage Account and Click Create a new account. Give a name to the account in the next page and choose whether you want to give permission as standard user or administrator. A standard user will have access to most of the software installed and can change settings which will not be affected globally or other users of the computer. An administrator will have full control over the computer.

To setup password for the newly created user, go to Manage Accounts. Click the user name and click create a password. If you feel that you no longer need this account, you can also delete it from Manage Accounts -> User Name -> Delete the account.