User Accounts

This is a step by step tutorial for creating user accounts and limiting their access to certain things.

From control panel (1) click on User Accounts and Family Safety

You will be taken to this screen. At the bottom of the box in the middle, click on Create a New Account

From here you can configure the new account. Type in the name of the account at the top and choose standard user (2).

Once the new user has been created, you will get taken back to this screen. The new user should show up this time. In order to make changes to the things they can access, click on it.

Here you can make many changes to the user. In order to restrict their access to things, click on Set up Parental Controls

It will take you to another screen asking you to select the user to set up parental controls for. Click on the new user

This is the main screen for managing user controls. Make sure that parental controls is turned on, and then you can control what this new user can do by setting time limits, game restriction, and allowing or blocking specific programs

If you click on Time Limits from the main screen you will get taken here. This will allow you to block the user from using the computer at certain hours on certain days. Clicking on a block will stop them from using the computer at that time on that day, and leaving it blank will give them access.

From the main screen, click on Allow and block specific programs and this is the screen that will come up. Check the bubble that says User can only use programs I allow. There will be a box that you can scroll through with every single program on the computer. Check the ones that you want the user to be able to use. (2) There is also a check all and uncheck all buttons to help.

From the main screen, clicking on Games takes you to this screen. Here you can allow or deny them to play any games at all, restrict based on game rating and content, or block specific games.

The next few steps are a tutorial for limiting the access of the new user for specific folders or files. Navigate to the desired folder or file, in this case a folder, and right click. Scroll down the menu options and click properties.

Click on the Security tab once in properties. In the top box there will be a list of users on the computer, and once you highlight a name the bottom box will display the permissions that they currently have with the folder. In order to change these, click Edit, the button underneath the top box.

In order to edit the permissions for the desired user, we must add them to the list. Click on Add to search for the user. A new box will pop up where you can do this. Enter in the name of the user in the box and click check names. The user should then appear in the box and you can click ok in order to add that user.

You will get taken back to the permissions screen and the user should be listed in the top box now. Clicking on that user will highlight it and you can now edit their permissions in the bottom box. You can give them full control, or only allow them to do certain things such as only being able to read it and not edit. Once you've checked the desired boxes, click apply and the changes will be updated.

(1) - In order to get to control panel, click on the windows logo in the bottom left corner and it will be listed on the right side of the panel that comes up, it will be underneath Computer

(2) - We are not making the account an administrator because we are trying to limit their access to things on the computer. Making it an administrator would give that user full control over everything.

(3) - Typically, if you want someone to be able to see a file but not change it in any way, your best bet would be to only allow read permissions for that account. That way they can see it but can't alter it