How to Create a New User Account and Not Lose Administrator Settings?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jim McGowan
  • Start date Start date
J

Jim McGowan

Hello all. I posted this in the XP.basics group and then found this group,
which seems to be the more appropriate firum. I apologize for the two
basically identical posts.

My first desktop PC running XP Pro came with XP Pro preinstalled and
preconfigured. (I had been using 98SE before that). It was set-up to
directly use the Administrator account, which I now know is not a smart way
to operate. On two notebooks running XP Pro that I subsequently purchased I
properly set-up a user account and gave it fast-switch access to
administrator privileges. I am the only user of all three PCs.

But that first desktop I mentioned was in use for at least six months before
I realized that one should never run directly from the Administrator
account. I created a new user account once I realized this, but many of the
applications I had installed did not show on the new user account. After
much searching and reading in the MSKB, Kelly's, and several other XP help
sites, I tried copying the Administrator profile to the new user account.
Even on a 2.8 Ghz Intel processor, it took a great deal of time, and the end
result was not what I expected. I still didn't have access to many of the
applications that were installed on the Admin account. I gave up and
re-tried this three separate times in two months and ending up abandoning
the effort in frustration. My notebooks run correctly using a user account
and then fast-switching to the Admin account when needed.

My Questions:

1) Am I heading for trouble running the desktop PC from the Admin account?

2) Is there a way to set-up a new user account and get it to work like the
notebooks do, or am I too far down the road to ever get it right at this
point?

BTW, the desktop in question is an HP Pavilion m270n running XP Pro - Media
Center 2004, XP Professional Version 5.1.2600 SP2 build 2600, CPU: Intel 2.8
Ghz, 1.5 MB RAM. I have them networked on a wireless Linksys router,
802.11b protocol with WEP and MAC filtering enabled, Zone Alarm firewall,
AVG Anti-virus, MS Anti-Spyware, Spybot, AdAwareSE, and SpywareBlaster on
all.

Thank you in advance for any assistance!
 
Jim McGowan said:
My first desktop PC running XP Pro came with XP Pro preinstalled and
preconfigured. (I had been using 98SE before that). It was set-up to
directly use the Administrator account, which I now know is not a smart way
to operate. On two notebooks running XP Pro that I subsequently purchased I
properly set-up a user account and gave it fast-switch access to
administrator privileges. I am the only user of all three PCs.

But that first desktop I mentioned was in use for at least six months before
I realized that one should never run directly from the Administrator
account. I created a new user account once I realized this, but many of the
applications I had installed did not show on the new user account. After
much searching and reading in the MSKB, Kelly's, and several other XP help
sites, I tried copying the Administrator profile to the new user account.
Even on a 2.8 Ghz Intel processor, it took a great deal of time, and the end
result was not what I expected. I still didn't have access to many of the
applications that were installed on the Admin account.
Click to expand...

This is not what is expected when you copy an account. Check "How to
Copy User Data to a New User Profile"
(http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=811151) for if you did it right.
Some applications do not work well with the multi-user feature of
Windows XP. You have to reinstall such programs once from each account
to make them work. You can install on top of the existing files.
Some programs require users with admin rights and will not work well
if you change the status of the user profile.
"How to Troubleshoot Program Compatibility Issues in Windows XP"
(http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=285909)
 
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