 Hi, my name is Sandra Botekis and I'll be bringing you through the Windows 7 Advanced Features. Now, as an instructor, I've been working with the Windows platforms since Microsoft came out with Windows. That brings me back to Windows 3.1. I still remember stepping into the classroom and teaching people what Windows was all about and how to use a mouse. Well I can say that Windows has certainly changed over the years and the features now make life so easy that almost anyone can learn how to use and easily navigate around the computer. So I look forward to showing you all the advanced features here in this course so that you can take your version of Windows and be up and running. In this unit, we'll learn about user accounts. We have a new interface that we use to create, edit, and even delete the user accounts. We'll learn how to switch users and how to log off an account. We'll also learn about passwords, why you need them, how to create them, and how to manage them. We can log an account and even disable it if we don't want the user to log in. So at the end of this module, we'll get a chance to really cover users from beginning to end. In this topic, we'll cover account management. The first thing we need to do is define user account. A user account is a collection of settings and privileges that are associated with a person. So an example, Microsoft Word might be customized the way that I want it. I may have Outlook configured to pull my personal email. Also, I tend to be kind of a nature girl, so I want some form of nature-based background. So based on that, these are all my settings. I also want to make sure that all my documents are secure, that even if someone else logs onto the computer, that they don't have access to them. Well, how I can accomplish all of this is to create a user account specifically for me. Password it and make sure no one has a password. So the user account is a collection of all the above associated with that person. So, again, all experiences is really tailored to the person who's logged in. Now, there are two basic types of user accounts. An administrator and a standard user. There always has to be at least one administrator on the machine. They're the ones who have full access to the computer's resources and settings. They're also the ones that are allowed to install and uninstall software and even configure hardware. So based on that, we can't disable all administrator accounts, or we wouldn't have anyone with a privilege high enough to even re-enable the administrator. A standard user is someone who can simply do that. They can just use the programs. They can access them, but they can't make system changes. What's going to happen is it will prompt them for an administrative password. Now, an administrator can use programs, but they can also install and remove them. They can change passwords. They can change account pictures. They can change account names and types. Other users' passwords. They can add both local and network printers and even change system settings. Well, a user can't do all of that. They can use programs. They can change their own password and their own account picture, and they can also add printers. You can have multiple administrator accounts. This allows each administrator to have their own separate account. One of the things this would help you do is to track the system changes. Who configured or installed what. You can also easily delete an administrator level user without having to change and distribute the passwords for all the other administrators. We also have a guest account. By default it is disabled, because the guest account can officially be considered a type of security hole. Meaning someone who's logging on but has no privileges. I would rather create them a user account and give or limit the specific privileges. Now, the guest account has to be enabled in order to use, and it can use installed programs, but it has very, very limited privileges. When you manage user accounts, you go through control panel. In control panel, you can navigate to the user accounts, and then within user accounts, you could manage accounts. You can always tell your path by looking right here. Well, the first thing that you do is you take a look at the accounts that are existing, and if there's one that you want to change, all you need to do is click on it. So if we wanted to go ahead and change anything about Ann's account, we would go ahead and click right here. Now notice that Ann is listed. There's her username, and it tells us she's a standard user. Notice that there is nothing about a password underneath that. What that tells me is Ann does not have a password assigned to her account. If you look to the left, you have the administrator. Well, the administrator has admin, that's the name. Administrator specifies the role, and the third line here says password protected. So that's how I know the difference between the two. Now if you wish to create a new account, we've got a link right here. And below it we have some additional items like help on what a user account is. Maybe we want to set up parental controls. We can go ahead and do that as well. Or we can go back a step to just the main user accounts page. If you wish to create a user account, simply go to control panel from the start menu. Click on add and remove user accounts. It will ask you for an administrator password, so enter that in, and then click on create a new user account. Enter in the name, select the account type, and just simply click on create account. When you're creating an account, you can't specify all of the different properties, like the password and example. So to edit the user account, you want to go back through add and remove user accounts, enter in the administrator password, you can then click on the user account that you want to edit and make all of the changes right there. An account picture can help you identify which user account is active. It's displayed when the system requests you to enter in your password. Now you can use your own images, or you can browse windows for some of the default ones. So if you don't like the one it picked for you by default, go ahead and hit browse, look at the ones that Windows gave, or you can browse to your own pictures folder and go ahead and put your own picture in there. If you wish to delete account, you have to be logged on as administrator. Now an administrator can delete both standard user accounts and the other administrator accounts. You have an option to delete all files that are associated with the account. Now if you choose not to delete all files, only the administrator will have access to those files. Many changes require you to be an administrator. So even though you're logged on as administrator, when you go to access that restricted action, you may very well be prompted, unless of course someone has disabled the user account control. So when you attempt to hit the restricted action, you'll be prompted entering the administrator password and at that point it'll allow you to make the changes. You can switch user accounts without logging off. All you need to do is click on start, go to shutdown, there's a little arrow next to it. In that menu you'll see switch user. Click on the user account that you want to switch over to and log on as. Enter in the password if one has been set and when you click on the arrow button or press enter, you will switch over to that profile. Control Alt Delete is a keyboard sequence that's been around for a long, long time. Typically it's how we lock the computer, log on or even log off. Now these have been around since the beginning of Windows. Well Control Alt Delete still has similar account options. It'll allow you to lock the computer. If you password protect your computer without logging off, we can switch a user, we can log off, change your password or even start task manager.